Not Quite The Bat
by Medorikoi
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gothams worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...B/J
1. Chapter 1

_**Not Quite The Bat...**_  
Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If i owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R for now  
Warnings: Gore for now  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gothams worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

To say that he was outnumbered was a monumental understatement. Batman leapt to higher ground in the form of a stationary Mack Truck to assess the situation. Penguins' criminal group swarmed beneath him, they had finally smartened up and for now put their egos aside to ban together. Penguin, Firefly, Bane, Killer Crock, Dr. Strange, and members of the Falcone family were out for blood, one last stand against the Batman and they did not plan on failure. Bullets and knives flew through the air indiscriminately, ripping through his cape, some finding their mark and grazing or even embedding themselves in his armor. He needed a way to trap them all, freeze them long enough- but there was no time to think, a blade ripped through the muscle in his right arm as it whizzed past. He leapt down, dodging, running. He was surrounded and the bullets were still flying. He could hear the metal fly through the night past him but it was the ones that were missing that froze Batman's heart. The thwack of muscle meeting metal filled the night, the soft wet final thud of bodies falling to the ground. They were killing themselves in a hail of friendly fire. So much for their organization skills. He needed to get out now and not just for himself anymore.

Batman ran through the night, smashing those he came across but they were calling out his position to one another, he was trapped and there was no way he could support his own weight with his injured arm. He took a step back to avoid Penguins whirring blade and his boot crunched with the sickening sound of flesh beneath him. Another knife sliced into his side as he latched his cable to his arm, it took both arms to fire it to the top of a close building. He was lifting off and the world turned into one of blinding light and sound. A scream ripped through the night and it took a moment to realize it was his own. The muscles in his arm ripped as his body pulled forward, a bullet caught him between armored plates. It did not feel like a small round of hot metal burring into his chest, it felt like being hit by a semi. It was probably a combination of blood loss, pain, and adrenalin but as he swung into the darkness he swore he could hear the cold snick of blood raining from him onto the crowd and metal below. Metal whizzed around him but they were flashes in the night, the whistling in his ear as his vision grayed, the darkness was coming for him.

The cold breath of death was on his neck as he hit the roof, he had only seconds before the others found a way to him. No time to make sure, only to escape, to save himself, to save them all. He jumped off the other side of the building, barely pulling himself to the edge before Firefly was upon him. He was in free fall, his belt beeping franticly as his body stats weakened, cold harsh cement rushed up towards him, the screeching of tires filled the night air and salvation rolled beneath him, closing him away and whipping him into the night as the dark knight was lost to sweet oblivion.

* * *

The Joker raced through the underbelly and slums of Gotham City. It was not true, it could not be, Batman would not do that to him. He would not let himself die at the hands of petty mindless pawns. The news screeched at him through the open windows of cars, every store window he passed battered the false news against him, over and over no matter how he tried to avoid it the image of that scum dancing around, mindlessly killing what they could never understand. No, not killing, those nothings did not kill Bats and he was going to make sure of that.

The higher end of the band of fools traipsing across the television screen would be harder to find but the lackeys were almost too easy. Hunting them did nothing to assuage the rage building in his chest. He screeched to a halt in the road outside the hideout, jumping out in a fury, he saw only red. Alone he burst inside the dive without a second thought, walking boldly to the back where even his own lackeys feared to tread. Faces flashed in his mind, these thugs who did not merit breath let alone full-fledged existence burned onto his retinas.

"You didn't kill The Batman." There were five of them, brave in their numbers, in the guns that hung heavy on their belts, in the number of friends assessing the lone man from across the room.

"Well well well if it isn't the Joker." The biggest, dumbest, ugliest oaf spoke for them, the finest representation they had. "Looks like you are the joke now. You couldn't even kill a little bat."

The rage was building, flooding into his arms, warming his flesh, making his fingers itch to be completed, sharpened by the familiar weight of his blades. This one would be the first to die. The rage sharpened to a fine deadly point, spearing into his mind, making him whole. "You. Did not. Kill. The Batman." He licked his lips, the scar tissue on his cheeks smooth and addictive, he did it again.

"We did you a favor clown!" The oaf laughed, Joker laughed to, except the oaf stopped laughing when a blade sunk into his throat cutting straight through his airway, Jokers cold tinkling laugher echoed through the silent room. Some people had no since of humor.

The four left attacked at once, no fun at all, they could hardly get the guns up before their screams turned into ruby bubbles and raspy gasps for air. No playmates for him, certainly not ones for the bat. Joker held his little knife up to the last living goon, sliding it lovingly into his mouth, how familiar and comforting the action seemed in his time of need.

"You did not kill the Batman." The man-oaf was crying, Jokers laugh was cold and thin, genius wasted on the brainless.

"No." It obviously hurt the man to speak, the blade cutting into sensitive pink flesh. "He escaped. Hurt- Might have died." Joker gave him one last parting smile as he removed the blade and brought it to the man's eye.

Another meaningless death, another wasted coward. "You did not kill the Batman." The blade squelched as it slipped home, there was a short scream and then silence he pulled the blade out and wiped the gore on the corpses stained shirt, it was time to rethink things.

The Joker slipped into his car, he might have been a little hasty. Questions he should have asked, answers he wanted poured into his mind, fueling his fire. How was he hurt? How badly? How long would his playmate be stuck at home without him? How long would the Joker be all alone in this city of mindless zombies?

But the panic that hung in the back of his mind like a poisonous cloud was fading. Batman was alive. They could continue their dance, only hindered for a time by these leaches, these pathetic nothings. He floored it to the scene of the battle, slipping easily into the darkness surrounded these children with guns and badges. There were chalk lines, blood splatter painted the ground and walls of the alley like a finger painting done by a younger version of himself, beautiful raw materials but no art, no finesse. One trail was different; the blood splattering in a line from increasing heights, there was a lot of it, enough to fill a daydream or two certainly. It took a minute to get to the top of the next building over but the cops had not even found the area, it was beautiful in its untouched purity. The Bats blood dripped thick and heavy to the far edge, he was alive when he jumped or fell. Joker sat on the edge letting his feet dangle in the darkness. He reached out and touched the dark red-black blood. It did not feel right, only he had the right to drawl this from the Batman.

It was cheating, a terrible joke to let these fools hurt Bats, the bat was his and they were ruining his games. For ages he had let these insignificant figures live but their grace period had come to an end. Anyone who stood between the Batman and the Joker had to die, time for their last punch line.


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R for now  
Warnings: Gore for now  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

Something was crushing him; it was hard to breath with the weight on his chest. He wanted to swat it away; to fight and live but his arms were slow and heavy, scarcely responding to him. Panic coursed through him, had he been captured? He opened his eyes and closed them just as quickly when the garish light blinded him, he squinted this time, letting the world turn into hazy grey.

"Master Bruce."

"Alfred?" The voice that was ripped from his throat was an unrecognizable croak. He forced his eyes wider, ignoring the tears in them, it was so bright. "What-?"

Something cool and wet was held onto his eyes and he was immersed in blissful darkness, a hand carded gently through his hair. So he was safe after all. He tried to smile his thanks, his relief, but the muscles seemed frozen and useless. Alfred must have seen his effort because the calming hand was back, a second cloth brushed gently across his face.

"You were badly injured in battle, two gunshot wounds and multiple serious lacerations. This is the first time you have been lucid in two and a half weeks."

If Alfred said anymore just then it was lost as his heartbeat thundered in his ears, a warrior's drumbeat and a war cry. Two and a half weeks Gotham had been left unprotected with the villains celebrating his downfall.

"Alfred!" The croak turned into an anguished roar that tore at his throat. He struggled to sit, the crushing pressure on his chest increased and his head swam, his ribs felt as though someone had lodged a knife between them and twisted mercilessly.

"Sir!" Soft hands pushed him down and Bruce wanted to cry out when he fell back the precious three inches he had gained. "It is alright!"

"Gotham." His city, he left it so defenseless, how many people died as he lay here? What had he done?

"Sir everything is under control, or very nearly." Pain throbbed in his head, through his whole body, he shut his eyes against the pain and Alfred's voice grew softer, more paternal. "A masked crusader has stepped up in your absence, the first night that the criminals of Gotham believed they had free rein of the city Firefly was found dead. He was burned with his own laser, rather nasty business if you ask me." The blankets were pulled down to his hips the cold caressed his overheated chest; it would be a welcome distraction if not for Alfred's soft sigh and the hands pulling at the remnants of a bandage just below his heart.

Bruce opened his mouth to speak but Alfred hushed him and continued with the process of cleaning the reopened wound. "Since then ten known gang members including one or two of the leaders, Bane, and Firefly have been found dead."

"Dead-" All that time he had spent capturing them, saving them and his own soul- wasted, stolen away while he slept.

"Disreputable methods to be sure but the criminal class of Gotham has been scared into hiding, besides the murders there has been an all time low of nefarious plotting." Bruce forced his eyes open, Alfred finished the bandage on his chest, he looked older. Deep purple darkened under his eyes, his suit and hair not unkempt but somehow ruffled, not so untouchably immaculate. He was truly worried; these wounds were serious.

"All the people who attacked me."

"Sir?"

"They had stood together against me, I was not expecting them. Firefly, Bane, and I would bet Wayne industries the dead gang members were there. Whoever is doing this has some connection to the Batman. "

"In this city who does not?" Bruce forced the smile this time, it burned his cheeks and it was a wasted effort, Alfred could see straight through him.

"I have to stop this; I have to save the others."

"Forgive my skepticism but do you plan to ask The Knight to wheel you to the scene of the next murder and please refrain from killing the villains?"

"The Knight?" Bruce was glad to see color return to the older man's cheeks even if it was an uncharacteristic blush.

"That is what they are calling him. He is the talk of Gotham, besides you of course. He says-" Bruce was amazed to see the blush on his stoic butler intensify. "He says that he will act as The Batman's Knight until such a time that you are able to retake your mantle."

After arguing and another round of antibiotics to burn off infection Bruce managed to gain control of a laptop interfaced with the Batman computers below… propped up on several pillows with a strong cup of English tea at his side.

The sun was setting outside of his bedroom and Bruce longed to return to the Batcave. The work he did now was relevant, necessary even before he faced this new character. Was he good or evil? A righteous villain or a misled hero? But he felt weak as Bruce, like his mind was numbed by this inferior façade, that the fever that raged within him and stole his strength would only fuel the Batman's rage.

The first mention of this man, this Knight, was the night following his own failure. Firefly had been raiding a bank, working for himself now that the pay was better than working for hire, when he was well and truly stopped. Bruce broke into the police database to find the pictures of the crime scene, the wounds were all cauterized with the heat of his own searing laser, his mask had been ripped off and thrown to the floor at his feet, his dead eyes staring from an untouched face bared for all the world to see. How strange, Bruce realized that this may be the first time he had seen Firefly's face outside of a mug shot, in death he looked so_ human_.

The gang members and even a few of the Falcone family died the next week, it was a normal murder, that is if murder can ever really be normal. Six low ranking men and two cousins were all shot in a restaurant downtown controlled by the mob. Three of the men were taken down in a fight, their bodies strewn across the restaurant, the other five were not as lucky. They were herded into a corner and forced onto their knees in a small circle. The pictures were gruesome, each died execution style with a bullet to the back of the head but the bodies all lay on top of one another. As if in punishment, perhaps for the cowardice of surrender, they were forced to watch the bodies fall in front of them as they waited their turn, friends piling up in a mass of blood, skull, and grey matter.

Bane was the last to die, he had taken to walking around as juiced up as possible, even he had been running scared. He was on the street when The Knight found him; the tubes attaching the venom to his brain were severed. At the high level of Venom Bane had been accustomed to the withdrawal was instant and crippling. His weakened body was hoisted 20 stories over Gotham before the rope was cut just above him. A knife was found next to Banes remains. Bane had been given the knife before he was lifted into the night air, he had been given a choice, suffer the massive debilitating withdrawals he would never in this life escape or cut the rope and end it all. His back broke upon impact.

Each murder had eye witnesses, there were pictures of sketches done by police composite artists but they were all the same. A full figure instead of a headshot, clad all in black including a mask that covered most of the face, any skin not covered was blacked out with makeup save for feminine ruby red lips. The figure itself was definitely masculine but the tight clothing and stance of the figure held an air of feminine grace. There were news clips and live interviews with witnesses. Gotham was bussing with news of its 'Knight', a flood of condemnations and gratitude in equal parts. The headlines all bore the same quote from one man's description of Gotham's new Vigilante "Not Quite The Bat…"

Bruce spent the night gathering information but there was almost nothing to be found. No leads on who this masked crusader was besides a strange affiliation with Batman, the M.O. on each murder was different, the places and the methods of killing were all twisted but profoundly diverse. It was three in the morning when a signal came over the Batwave speeding Bruce's heart to a flurry, the thumping rhythm of utter helplessness. He knew as he listened it was useless, not a murder in progress, Killer Crock had just been found dead. Teenagers drinking on the beach had heard thrashing, Killer Crock was chained at the water's edge, unable to escape his bonds he could only watch as the water came over him with the night tide, thrashing in the end as his final breath fled with the frightened children. At 3:05 Bruce called Lucius Fox and began working on a temporary Batsuit, one that could hopefully keep Bruce Wayne together long enough to make it through a night as The Batman.

Lucius and Alfred watched as he struggled with the lightweight armor, they did not need to say a word, it was in their eyes as Kevlar slipped over the harsh white bandages. If he was found tonight by any adversary this would be the mission he did not return from. That did not stop Alfred from trying.

"Sir-"

"You know I have to go. I cannot sit here while he is out there killing people."

"Is it really worth it? To risk your life, to risk Batman to save the lives of criminals? Be reasonable Master Bruce, how can you go prowling through the night when you cannot stand on your own."

Bruce glared up at Alfred as his betraying body swayed and forced him to stop putting on the Batsuit to catch himself white-knuckled against a chair. "They are still people and Batman can not knowingly let them die. Whether they deserve it or not is not up for us to decide." A deep breathe calmed his drained body and he felt better, stronger, as the cowl slipped over his eyes and he could feel the reassuring switch from Bruce Wayne to The Batman. "And I do not plan to do anything more than necessary, I know where he is going to be and Batman obviously means something to him, hopefully when he sees me I can end this without a fight."

Lucius and Alfred shared a look that conveyed entire conversations that Bruce would have pretended not to see, Batman watched his two oldest friends with the cold finality of a decision already made.

"Tell me where you will be so if something goes wrong I will be there to help." Lucius spoke for them both; the silent 'in case you are irreparably damaged' went unsaid.

"Arkham Asylum. Dr Strange turned himself in earlier this evening looking for protection. There is no way the Knight is going to let him walk, it is going to happen and it is going to happen tonight."


	3. Chapter 3

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R for now  
Warnings: Gore for now  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

The bandages were pulled tight across his chest, holding his mangled arm together, keeping him from falling apart at the seams. The tight cloth made the wounds burn and the stitches itch, he had not felt this strong since that last battle. The cowl was dark around his eyes, he felt hidden, powerful, he would not fail again. The city whizzed past him, lights streaming, people walking around like nothing existed in the world but themselves. It was strange, he wanted Gotham to be different from the one he had left in a cruelly selfish way, he buried the thought deep within himself, pushed down with the rest of the darkness that hovered always just out of sight. He was glad Gotham had survived this well in his absence, in a way he was almost thankful for the Knight. They fought the same people, but the Knight stepped over the line, he was as much a criminal as a hero whether Gotham wanted to admit it or not.

Batman hid down a dark alley very close to Arkham's main building, hating that he could not swing to the rooftop or even hide the Batmobile further but the strength in him was a blinding façade, even if he physically accomplished these tasks it was pulling at the unraveling thread that held him together. His belt blinked helplessly by the time he reached one of the side entrances, his heart rate was too high, he looked resolutely away from the instrument, he would not let his frailty stop him, not now. The halls were empty, dim in the half light of a false night, he glanced longingly at the stairwell, eyeing the rails high above he took a single faltering step towards them before turning to the service elevator. He cursed himself and the smug voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like Alfred.

Hugo Strange had requested a high security cell and his old connections at the Asylum bought him just that. A huge cell on the topmost floor of Arkham, alone because no one else merited such treatment and none were foolish enough to request it. The doors of the elevator swung open with a cheerful ding that made Batman wince, nothing like a cheerful calling card in case he was second to arrive. It only took a second and a few dragging steps to find the guards slumped behind their desk, a few more precious moments to ascertain that they were alive and unharmed.

The door was open. Barely half an inch, but it was open, were they waiting for him? He rushed forward, adrenalin pumping through his system, his hands balling into fists that could not feel the strain in the muscles above, only their own quite power. He rushed into a half darkness, streams of light crossing the room, illuminating only parts of a whole. He saw nothing; the people he came to see were encased in the darkness.

"Batman!" The voice was strong and clear, coming from the far right side of the room, almost happy. A low whine broken with choked sobs came from the left, a soft backdrop of pain.

"I knew you were alive! You would never let them kill you!" A figure stepped into the light, a black outline encompassed in a halo of light. Unrestrained joy emanated from him, infused his voice so thoroughly that for a moment Batman was at al loss. The number of times Batman met with such an honestly fond reception from anyone save Alfred was disheartening. His normal rage was a pale way to cope but his mind was whirling, he had planned for many things but this was not one of them.

"What did you do with Strange?" He had to focus, he had a mission, this person was going to kill Strange and he was the only one that could stop him…the only one who would bother.

"Nothing you would not have done in my place. But you know that already don't you Batman?" There was something in the way he said his name. _'Batman'._ He had heard it used in pleas, in horror, astonishment, and in pain but never… in _love_. There was no other way to describe it, the drawing out of the syllables, the way it took on new life, the way his already smooth voice sweetened.

Batman shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it, looking dutifully away from the erratic flashing on his belt; the figure in front of him moved further into the light. The light glistened off him now, catching the black leather, highlighting the subtle curves of hip and chest but leaving his face in darkness. Heat flooded Batman's body as his eyes roamed over the figure, forgetting for a moment who this person was.

A small bright chuckle echoed through the cell, cutting the piteous moans. "Like what you see? I made it for you." He posed, hips cocked to one side, a black clad arm resting on the back of his head in a relaxed posture, so exposed and unafraid. "Tight black is all the rage with heroes." A hand gestured towards him flippantly, like his movements were unrestrained by practicality or weariness. Batman envied him, his own arm beginning to throb even through the screen of adrenalin, the slightest motion an act of the greatest willpower. "And I heard you had a thing for the Cats leather." The man shuttered visibly, waiting only a beat "I pull it off better."

The words of agreement were on his lips when he froze them in horror. Agreement? How could he banter like old friends with a murderer while his intended victim watched on the sidelines? Batman growled out loud, ever since he had seen the case photos from the murders he had been haunted by the faceless man, his supposed Knight. Something in the man's actions struck something deep within him. That part of him, that deep hovering evil that he fought with every waking moment sang with profound joy and unrelenting desire. For the first time someone was addressing not the perfect hero but conflicted man beneath whom no one wanted to believe existed.

"What did you do with Strange?" It was more of a scream now, the whimpering increased in pitch, panicked hiccups flooding the cell.

"But I already told you! I only did what you would have done in my place. It is how you knew I would be here tonight and not with Penguin! " He was stepping forward, long feline strides bringing him to rest in the center of the room, his body was thrumming with the need to make Batman understand at last. "The same reason that every time you think of how these villains have died you see the same beauty that I do. They died not by the innocent Batman's toys but by the ways they would have killed you! You can see the perfect dark irony, the way life imitates art in a way that only we can appreciate!"

Cruel and sudden understanding dawned on him. "Fear Toxin." Batman refused to answer the man, only the problem, refused to even deny what The Knight was saying. To condemn the words as insane ramblings would be to condemn the soul that resonated within himself.

"Fear Toxin." The Knight smiled in the darkness, it was fruitless to tell Batman that they were two parts of a whole, he would never understand until he was able to discover it himself. "But if you want to keep your virgin hands clean I would not go after him if I were you." The words were as soft as the others, not a threat but a gentle warning to a child not to step in front of a Mack Truck.

For Batman the room was tilting slightly, a criminal infused with Fear Toxin could wait just a little longer, just until his head stopped spinning and the panicked flashing on his belt subsided. Perhaps he could even wait until he had a face to go with the actions of his 'Knight'.

"Why are you doing this?" He was proud of how strong the words sounded when it had become such a trial to keep his back straight, to stand on betraying legs.

"To protect you." A hand rose up, reaching out to him, the tips of slender fingers grazing the edge of the light in front of him, just a step short of touching Batman's gloved hand. "With all your brilliance they could have killed you. A band of fools almost took you down because they are not bound the way you are." The hand dropped forlornly out of the light, Batman almost reached out for it. "Until you are free or they are dead I cannot stop."

Batman took another breath of cool air. Images of that last battle tumbling into the whirling in his mind, the Batman he knew saw how it was, the helplessness and the never ending battles which would only stop with his own death but the shadow beneath saw more. Each villain that had hurt him, each criminal striving to take his life could have been brushed away once and for all in an instant. Just as every person The Batman knew eventually asked…how many innocents would be saved if these few were to die?

"Why- Why me?" It was so hard to focus now. He was losing his grip on the reality he knew. He needed to know why, needed The Knight to keep talking so he could hear that voice again…so familiar. He wanted to see his face, to understand this mystery. But there was something else, the whimpering in the corner, he needed to save Strange, he did not need another beautiful death to finally push him over the edge.

"Batman?" The man in front of him took half a step closer as he spoke. That was not the answer he was looking for. He closed his eyes, willing the vertigo and spinning the walls to leave him alone. Why did the voice sound worried? Could that soft panic he heard exist in a person who had killed so ruthlessly? Were such emotions even allowed?

A scream broke through his consciousness, blue eyes flashed open. Strange. Time was running out and he had to save Strange. The mission gave him focus, he latched onto the delicate lucidity, crossing the cell quickly, falling to his knees in front of Strange.

The whimpering stopped abruptly, the silence after so long was deafening. He could hear a panicked intake of breath before the half remembered bloodcurdling scream that haunted his childhood dreams. Batman grabbed Strange's lapels, dragging him to lay flat in the light. The scream stopped, everything stopped.

He tore at his own thick gloves, throwing them to the floor before pushing his fingers into the man's thick throat. The man lay limp on the floor, hand still clutching his heart, a thin line of saliva dripping from his open mouth. Nothing. No pulse. Batman pushed harder, he just could not feel it, it had to be there, Strange could not be dead. His fingers searched for the ghost of a pulse until blood pooled under his fingernails and something collapsed with a sick crunch within the man's neck.

A hand touched his shoulder, the Knight, he thought slowly. He should leave now, he had failed, only danger lay here now, but he could only blink as the man sat on the ground beside him, pushing the dead man from view. Batman watched the light trace the contours of his dead face as he was pushed into eternal darkness, dead eyes staring at him even now, begging for help.

"Amphetamines. Fear Toxin and Amphetamines. " He looked up and for the first time ice blue met poisonous green. "That is what I would have done."

He smiled, ruby lips too full for a man the only thing besides vivid green eyes Batman could see of the man under the mask and concealing black makeup.

"Fear and speed and then…be still his beating heart." Jokers heart pounded against his chest, that beautiful dreadful understand in Batman's eyes as he understood what they really meant to each other. But Batman was not looking at him anymore, his head was uncharacteristically bent, his hands lay prone on his lap.

"Batman?" He reached out and finally touched that exposed cheek. Cold. He pulled back as if the moist skin had burned him. Reaching out to cup his face with hands, watching as icy blue slowly raised to meet his eyes.

"You are really hurt aren't you?" The voice that came from him was not his own. The Joker was fearless, The Knight, self assured, this…this was a heartbroken child, small and afraid. Batman's cape fell back and a flashing from his belt caught The Jokers eye, his breath caught in his throat as the pattern flashed like the heart of a hummingbird, he did not need to be told what it meant.

'_Batman? Batman your vitals are dropping-' The_ small electronic voice sounded from inside Batman's cowl, they were so close now that Joker could almost hear the words. _'You are bleeding out. You are going into shock. If we do not get you now…' _Joker pulled back, he did not want to hear any more.

"Why would you do this to yourself! To us?!" He fumbled for a moment at Batman's belt, releasing the grappling hook and launcher. His voice broke pathetically as he continued but if Batman noticed he kept his own counsel. "But I already know that don't I?"

He pulled Batman's limp body to the shattered window he had made his entrance through, the wind tore at him as he leaned out, having to fire twice before the grapple stuck. Batman always made it look so easy. Desperation had made his hands shaky and the water in his eyes made it hard to see but he had done it.

Joker kneeled and caressed the pale cheek once more, smiling wanly as their eyes locked. "I promised I would protect you." He pressed their cheeks together as his thin arms wrapped around Batman's chest, eventually standing both of them up. He struggled to keep them both upright, all of Batman's weight resting against him as he cannibalized Batman's cape, lashing the two of them together.

"Don't you turn into dead weight on me!" He could feel the chest pressed against him rumble before he heard the deep broken mumble.

"Ha. Ha."

Joker's heart leapt. It was more than he expected, they were going to make it out of this. The broken laugh buoyed his spirits and he felt strong. He lifted Batman's legs and let them wrap around his waist, limp arms tried to lift themselves but they strained and failed. He gently lifted Batman's arms around his own neck, arms coming around him like a child.

He walked carefully to the edge. The electronic voices in their ears said help was still a few minutes away. It looked very high now, as if the building had grown while they were inside. How many times had he escaped from here unscathed? But never like this…certainly not carrying another…. Something warm was buried into his neck, a breath short and gasping heating the edge of his face. He had escaped Arkham to play with the very person he was trying to save, he could do it now. The launcher was set to lower them, it was tied to the cloth holding them together and grasped carefully in Joker's hand. His free arm wrapped around Batman, holding him tight he looked over the night skyline, it was beautiful, something to share with a lover. As they tumbled over the edge, a mass of black with limbs entwined like lovers, he laughed.

'_We are almost there! Hold on! I knew we should have stayed closer!'_ The electronic voice buzzed desperately. His feet touched the ground and they collapsed together on the cold cement. Their bodies were a tangle of limbs and cloth, blood spotted their clothing but he did not want to know where or who it was from. Not now.

The streets were black and empty, complements of the panic the Knight had created in the criminal class, and the fall of Batman had created in the rest of the people of Gotham. Joker was glad for it. There was no one there to see as he held Batman in his arms, his head cradled against his chest.

"Batman." Black eyelashes fluttered and bottomless blue eyes looked at him, was this what it felt like to be afraid? It hurt.

"You want to know why- why you." The too-soft pulse beneath his fingers fluttered, he was afraid of the words even now so he leaned closer so as to whisper them. Their foreheads lay against one another, he could feel their quick breaths mingling and when he spoke their lips brushed.

"Because while you exist I am not alone."

As blue eyes drifted finally closed and Joker felt his heart breaking their breaths became one in a sweet desperate kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R for now  
Warnings: Gore for now  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

He could still feel the weight of him, the warmth of his breath against his face, so alive, for now. There was blood marring his hands, his gloves lost somewhere to the night. He did not want there to be blood, at least not right now, not from that man. Joker hurt. Everywhere. His heart, his lungs, his soul hurt. He did not know what to do, he never expected this, and he was lost.

Of course he had expected to suffer if Batman died; they were two halves of a whole! But he had expected to fade perhaps, maybe just to die in the same moment, purpose gone, alone again in a world that could never understand or have meaning. But pain…The threat of Batman's death, this was not the solid grounding feeling of a punch or a kick, this was intangible, elusive, it slipped between his fingers infecting all of him. A cancer, Batman's cancer eating away at him with his foolishness. Bastard.  
He didn't want to hurt. Not like this. But Batman did not care; Batman did not even care about himself. It was all Gotham this, Gotham that, which had been fine before, but things had changed. Before they had been locked in a suicide battle to the end, Batman had told him that once long ago. He said it did not have to be like that, that he could be helped, that maybe the Batman could help him control the chaos. He couldn't accept, they both knew why, they were both too stubborn, too afraid to trust, equals shouting out to each other across a gorge of acid. But the game had changed and for a few short days they had danced without death, at least not death for themselves. When The Joker played the hero, played The Knight, they were almost on the same side, close enough so that after all these years Bats was not afraid to see in The Knight what he had feared to see in the Joker, himself.

But now everything was wrong. It hurt. Even in death they were tormenting him! Batman could not be the Bat without hurting himself and The Knight could not carry out his very necessary mission with a dead Bat! Shock. That's what the old black man in the unmarked medical van had said, something about blood loss and his heart…he almost followed the van but he stopped himself. He didn't want to see his Bat as anything else, as one of these people, the faceless crowd, not when he was hurt. Batman could live, he was strong, but his pale imitation of life? Whatever he chose to be when not his caped crusader…could he survive this? He would be too human, too pale.  
For the first time in all the life that the Joker remembered a sense of self preservation had taken hold. How strange. To save the Bat was to save himself. So the Bat would just have to suck it up like the rest of mankind and live.

* * *

"You cannot possibly be thinking of answering that." Alfred had made his way to Bruce's room the moment the Batsignal had lit up the night sky. Bruce was sitting up in bed, covered in blankets and wrapped in bandages tight as a straight jacket, the machine at his side beeped pleasantly, alerting him every moment that he was still alive. But blue eyes were fixed on a point outside the window, his mind miles away.

"They might need me." His voice seemed as distant as his mind, not determine to meet the call quite yet, his distractions stopping him as much as his health.

"And they may be asking when you are expected to return to work. You drive the most technologically advanced machinery on the plant yet find yourself whole incapable of using a telephone. Might it be prudent just this once to call the commissioner?"

Bruce sighed and tore his eyes from the signal, looking at Alfred at last. His ward was upset; he was in pain from more than just the physical wounds he suffered. Bruce looked like a torn man as he looked up at him, begging the answers to questions he could never ask and that had no answer. Of course Alfred was use to it, was there a single moment in memory in which Bruce did not suffer? But it seemed…deepened somehow, the same expression he had whenever Batman did not seem like quite enough.

"You are right Alfred, if it is the commissioner I should just call him." That was somewhat unexpected, not wanting the ailing man to change his mind Alfred quickly handed over the secure line, busying himself with stocking medical supplies while the phone rang.

Odd really. To see Batman's gruff voice coming from the young man before him, his pale and injured ward ushering a deep growl of inquiry. The commissioner must have responded because Bruce's expression changed…an imitation of Batman to the excited young man Bruce never had the chance to be.

"Stay off the roof." Batman growled as he clicked the phone off, Bruce looked to him and Alfred could see that spark of life in his eyes. A sparkle that Alfred had believed to have died long ago.

"Alfred I have to go."

* * *

The Batmobile was parked literally next to the building, a stubborn alley away from the parking lot. Anger at his own condition heated his body as the fleeting thought of a parking ticket on the batmobile fluttered through his mind. He repressed the urge to roll his eyes at himself, he had been around Alfred and the Joker too long, he was starting to develop his own twisted sense of humor. Getting out of the car was a challenge, he was worse than last time, the flashing on his belt started as soon as it was on… as soon as Alfred had fastened it on him along with the rest of his gear.

"Hey there handsome, need a lift?" There he was, The Knight leaning against the wall of the building, the pilfered grappling hook twirling in his hands. Emerald eyes and ruby lips flashed bright in the darkness. His lips pulled up into a smile as his graceful yet exaggerated walk brought him closer. "As much as I would love to stand here eye-fucking each other all night we should get off the street."

He stopped and spun, his back brushing Batman's chest as he launched the hook successfully to the top of MCU, he jumped a little in excitement, his face glowing with the small victory when he faced him again. Batman swallowed the chuckle bubbling in his throat, too much like an indulging parent and an excitable child. He was ready this time for the heat coursing through his body at the site of the other man, ready for the too-comfortable feeling that made him vulnerable.

"How long did you have to practice to manage that?" Batman teased gruffly but his smile did not wither, it grew.

"Aw Bats are you offering lessons on how to play with your toys?" He winked lecherously, his voice held the timber of tinkling laughter. He was moving again, his arms coming around Batman's neck in an almost embrace, only Batman's arms hung at his sides, itching to hold the slim waist. Their faces were only an inch apart, etiquette demanded that they turn their heads but the Knight seemed perfectly at ease and Batman stood transfixed, too proud to be moved but afraid of getting lost in those eyes.

"Come on Big Boy, can you hold on to me this time?" Batman made no move, he could see green eyes roll in annoyance but they were still filled with amusement. Warm arms slipped off his shoulders and for a moment Batman was flushed with relief and a sudden disappointment but those hands wqere back, brushing his cape out of the way to grasp his own gloved hands. His hands were placed gently on the swell of the other mans hips, prominent hipbones felt easily through all those layers, heat pooled again in him, sweltering. Batman took a deep breath, he expected to see his own feelings reflected in his companion, or laughter perhaps but when he looked up he found only worry.

For an irrational moment Batman wanted to soothe that pain away, his arms slipped around the other man, encircling him his arms before he could stop himself. A single arm wrapped tight around his chest, the other stretched out above them both. They rose slowly into the night sky, wind whipped at them and Batman found himself glad for the other mans thin costume, the warmth he offered against the cold buffet. He clung tight to the Knight, not used to trusting or depending on another but that dangerous comfort was letting him see the city in a way he never could. He saw in his helplessness peace, the people who continued their lives in the light he could not understand, his Gotham so alive. He looked back at his aid, his self-appointed knight and found that green eyes were watching the city- only through the eyes of batman. Their eyes locked as they reached the edge of the building, the worry seemed to melt away as they climbed onto the edge. Following the Knight's lead they sat on the edge of the building, watching cars go by and their legs dangling over the edge.

As Batman sat warm unnecessary hands held him, their gentle touch brushing away his cape once more, revealing the calming pace of the softly flashing light. Batman looked at the other man in silent wonder, that worry, this awkward tenderness was all for him.

"I heard you saved me."

"You don't remember?" Batman could hear the tinge of disappointment, he hoped that the blush rising to his own face was less obvious than it felt, lost in the wash of light from their city.

"It is all a little…muddled."

"In that case I saved you. I am your Knight. It is kind of my job." Batman heard the subtle sadness in him, the self depreciating tone, but his face was blank, unfeeling.

"You did not follow the medical truck; you did not try to find out who I am." The man's head shook slowly, coming back from some distant place in his mind. He turned and they stared at each other, it was not like looking at anyone else in the world, to see yourself in another. It was as if he looked away he was turning his back on part of himself, surrendering that overwhelming feeling. He did not want to give that up yet.

"You do not care who I am. Whose face lies beneath the mask." It was not a question.

"This is who you are." A gloved hand rose to his cheek, the intimate touch strange but not unwelcome, a deep ache of longing was born in his chest in that moment, a touch that put into sharp relief everything he did not have in his life. "This is your face."

"And yours?" The hand dropped and he looked away again, he looked beautiful with the lights of the city gently washing over him.

"My face does not matter. This is who I am right now." He sighed, his head tipping back to see the night sky, stars muffled by Gotham's lights he turned back to the streets below. "This is the face that you know. The one you can see me in. This is me."

'Why Me?' the words were on his lips when a voice- his voice- spoke to him through the darkness 'Because while you exist I am not alone.'

He looked over to him in the shock of the memory; his heart sped, thumping against his ribs. He wanted to reach out, the press this person who mattered despite everything, this person who cared and existed close to him. To hold onto this precarious feeling and hide it away where no one could take it from him. The urge, the desire built within him, strengthening his courage, to reach out and touch another person. But as Batman struggled with himself The Knight had already won his inner battle and the words came out stuttered and awkward, foreign in his mouth.

"Are you-okay?" Their eyes met, an intense lock of green and blue. The Knight licked his lips nervously. "I mean all of it. Your health and…everything." His arms swept out, drawing their focus to the city. "Us." He was tentative as he looked back to Batman, afraid to see the answers to questions he never asked of anyone, answers that would mean nothing from anyone else.

Batman opened his mouth, ready to spew the automatic growl. 'I'm fine' but tonight was different, he was different. For once in his life as Batman he was speaking to an equal, someone who saw life through the same tortured eyes.

"If you had not carried me to the ground level I would have died in the time it took for them to reach me." The Knight nodded, the news was what he expected but not what he wanted to hear, his hands were twisting in his lap painfully. Batman wanted to reach out and hold those hands.

How is everything…his city, his life, his half tortured existence, how did he feel about it all? Did he ever really let himself feel it at all? But there was that bubbling in his chest, that excited childlike feeling he could not explain as he gazed on the other man, watching him anguish over Batman. Everything to him was the way he woke up thinking of when they would meet next, it was thinking for just a second that every doorbell was him, every ring of a phone meant hearing his voice. Everything was the one thing he had let slip over into his life as Bruce Wayne.

"As for us, as for everything…"He waited, he wanted The Knight to stop moving, to focus only on him, to understand what he was trying to convey because it cost him so much to do it. A gloved hand slipped to his cape, brushing it away to see this heart flashing on his belt. Wide worried eyes settled on him, the hand setting gently on his knee. "For me, for right now…we are everything."

A small smile graced the Knights ruby lips. "Even though this us, this everything is killing you." His voice was soft and pained, it did not sound natural for this man of brilliant smiles to be so hurt, Batman longed to comfort him but he had only lies to offer as hope. What use is it to lie to your own soul?

"If I die doing this we will certainly mean everything to me until my dying day." The knight winced but the smile felt less strained.

"You have the darkest sense of humor I have ever seen. That is saying something." The tension between them rose now that they could not ignore how exposed they had made themselves, how naked they really were.

"I do not want you to die playing my games."

"It does not have to be like this. If you stop killing them then I do not have to stop you. I can help you."

The knight smiled and realized his hand still lay on Batman's knee, his fingers began tracing lazy patterns across his leg. "If I do not kill them then you will die playing their games, we have been over this. What kind of hero would I be if I let that happen?"

"We are not heroes." Batman was surprised to see the smile he got for that, how warm it was.

"No. We are something more."

Heat was flooding through him once more; Alfred had already checking in with him once saying his heart rate was climbing. How could he say that it was because the man beside him had a hand on his leg, that every innocent touch was speeding his heart? The Knight spun beside him to sit cross-legged facing him. Batman swallowed, the hand was playing absentmindedly with his armor, running gently across it as the man himself became more excited. Batman grabbed the hand and held it firmly in his own. There was a beat in which they both realized they were holding hands. Their eyes met and without looking away The Knight entangled their fingers, his gloved hand holding onto Batman's.

Batman looked down at their entwined hands, black against black, one holding tight, one limp, he wanted those hands to meld so that he did not know where one started and the other began. Slowly he closed his fingers around the others hand. He looked up; the Knight was watching him with the sweetest innocents that it almost made him believe that there was good left in both of them.

"I am not going to let me kill you, or is it let you kill yourself?" A thumb stroked the back of Batman's hand; they were both watching the mesh of black, both wishing to be rid of their gloves, to actually feel the warmth of human touch. A soft tinkling laugh made Batman look up. "I am not going to let us kill you."

"But neither of us can stop who we are."

"And we are both too stubborn to try."

"So what now?"

"You could either trust me not to kill them and stay in bed..." Batman's rueful smile was enough answer for both of them. "Or I propose we have shared custody! Like a real All-American family, distrust and organized schedules." His smile and energy were palpable; Batman cocked an eyebrow under his mask, silently amused.

"Custody of whom? The criminals?"

"No. Of you!"

"You're joking."

"Me? Never!" The man was smiling, the pitch of his voice rising in excitement, he was serious. "If we just stay together, not out in the city waiting for you to die but at home. Safe, somewhere where I can protect you and you can protect Gotham from me."

"No." The answer was immediate and final. He could not take anyone back to the Batcave, to allow them access to his sanctuary. And there was so much more than mere practicalities to contend with. Could he spend days with this Knight and not become more engrossed? Could he remain stoic and cold or would the relentless feeling of comfort take over his senses?  
"Bats think about it! Are you really saying that you would rather die and let these criminals die with you than stay with me?"

"It is not that simple."

"But it is." The man moved closer, his knees brushing the side of Batman's leg. "I can go with you or you can come with me. I know you don't want to give up your freedom, it was not easy for me to offer." Batman squeezed his hand in silent encouragement before he could stop himself. He froze, the movement had been instinctual, human, something he had not felt for another person in years. He had always had to watch and mimic emotion, he had to pretend until now. "But this is the only way to save you." His green eyes bore into him, pleading with him to live. "Besides, I look amazing in a nurse uniform." The grin caught Batman off guard, his own lips responding with a smile of his own, the muscles felt strange to use as Batman, it felt like a surrender and a victory.

"Let's go." Batman stood up, finally having to release The Knight's hand as he stood up, he felt the lose more keenly then he anticiapted but the man was bouncing up in an instant.

"Is that a yes?"

"It means we cannot expect the commissioner to stay off his own roof all night."

Batman made his way slowly above where the Batmobile sat; he let the other bound ahead of him with the launcher. His arms spread wide in invitation as Batman drew closer.  
"Need a ride down?" Batman let himself be enveloped, warm arms coming around him and this time his own arms twisted around the smaller man without hesitation, holding him close as they drifted to the ground. Batman rested his chin against the man's shoulder, hidden in the darkness. As the city lights flashed and a heart beat steadily next to his Bruce thought of the most unsettling thing he had ever been faced with as Batman. Walking into The Knight's arms felt like coming home.


	5. Chapter 5

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

This was stupid. Very stupid. Batman looked over at the masked man sitting beside him, his eyes wide with awe, his hands trailing delicately over flashing panels, carefully not pressing down. He never should have taken the man with him, but then again did he really have a choice? He could take him to the commissioner, throw him in jail or Arkham but… could he really do that? The thought made his chest ache and he wondered for the first time if maybe Batman had a heart after all. This man, this almost Batman, only wanted to save him and they were already so much alike. Throwing him away, breaking this strange connection between them could be the final straw of sanity for them both. Bruce did not know if he could survive watching his first real connection with another person become twisted as betrayal warped the man's mind. Batman did not know if he could survive watching The Knight become a villain.

The streets of Gotham were desolate, walked only by the brave, the foolish and the desperate. Bruce was grateful. He was so weak he could barely keep his hands on the wheel; he flicked the car into autopilot, searching quickly for the never-used blindfold tucked beside his seat.

"Put this on." That eager face turned to him, ignoring the cloth in favor of flicking lazily between the wheel and Batman.

"Shouldn't you be…I don't know…driving?"

"You don't trust me?" He meant it as a joke, he waited for a wiry smile, but when the blindfold was silently taken from him and tied on Batman's heart skipped a beat. This was already going way too far.

He quickly sent a message to Alfred warning him not to come down into the Batcave and to lock the entrance into the manor. He received a curt reply about bringing dates home after only the second date. Somehow Alfred's easy dry humor made the situation somehow less sinister.

The Knight sat the rest of the ride with his fingers still carefully tracing the dials and buttons of the car. Batman spent the time watching the other in restful silence, the way that his long graceful fingers reminded him of a pianists trained hands and wondered idly if he could play. He tried to stay away from the bright red of his lips, the only color that remained on his blacked out body. Lips that smirked slightly as if aware of Batman's scrutiny.

"We are here." Batman released the doors and the Knight pulled off the blindfold. His mouth gapped as he stepped out of the car, spinning as if not knowing what to take in first. He ended up at the edge of the Batmobiles platform, staring off into the main section of the Batcave, the monstrous computer screens lighting the darkness.

"We all have our own sense of artful irony don't we?" He laughed and the sound echoed joyously through the cave that had rarely had the chance to hear such a noise. "The Batman really has a cave. Why am I surprised? Bats it is so you!" He turned and found Batman still sitting in the car, his legs hanging out the door, eyes watching him carefully.

"Bats?" The joy disappeared from his face in an instant; he was back at Batman's side, crouching to eye level.

"Just- I just need a minute." So tired, the lethargy in his body only served to frustrate him and make his blood heat, speeding his heart and making his head feel all the more faint.

"I have already seen you at your worst Bats." Gloved hands cupped his face "Stop trying to hide from me, it won't work." His head was a fog of sleep, he knew he was falling into those eyes, and he could not help but wonder what lay beneath the makeup and the careful mask. Would he still hold this power over him if they were nothing but their fragile human selves? Would he still be this beautiful?

"Where can you rest here?" Batman looked briefly into the cave, focusing on where he knew a bed lay in a cubby of medical supplies. The man in front of him nodded, his arm wrapping around Batman's back, pulling him up and supporting most of his weight.

"Come on Big Guy." They made their way slowly to the bed, Bruce crashing down on it. He could not just leave The Knight alone and unwatched in the Batcave, he needed to stay awake, needed to secure everything but soothing hands were pushing him back down onto the bed.

"I am fine." The growl was deep and almost convincing but he could not muster the energy to sit back up again and a patronizing finger covered his lips.

"Shh. Stop being stupid." Deft hands began to work at the heavy armor and Bruce's eye flashed open, batting the hands forcefully away.

"No!" He could not be revealed, not let pieces of Batman fall away from him leaving a pale sick Bruce in its wake. He needed his armor to keep the Knight away, to have something solid to hold onto. He could not keep relinquishing power; he needed Alfred to come care for him but with the Knight watching….

"Batman!" The Knight was on the bed, straddling him, his hands pinning Bruce's hands above his head, stopping the feeble thrashing he had not registered he was doing. Their faces were only inches apart, those ruby lips inches away sending a breath ghosting over him. He looked up from those lips and fell into forceful green eyes that demanded his attention.

"I know you want to pretend you are not human! I understand more than you know. But you need to let me take care of you, you need to let someone in or you are going to end up killing yourself!" The breath pumping against him was hot and ragged, he wanted to deny him but he had no strength to do it, he knew the man was right.

"When you let me save you you began to trust me. I need you to do that again."

"No." His voice was weak with fatigue and denial, a battle he was not going to win and…one he did not want to.

"You do trust me don't you? You do not want to but you do." Ruby lips smiled but in his muddled mind Batman could only think that they looked…pained. "You never wanted to believe in me but you cannot help it. Do you want to know how I know?" He did not wait for a response, he was leaning impossibly closer, their cheeks brushing as he whispered the words that followed d Batman into sleep. "I never wanted to believe in you either."

Bruce was warm and nothing hurt and he wanted to stay like this forever. The world could stay out of his brilliant cocoon, he had finally found somewhere where death and pain could not follow. An unexplained happiness filled him and a wise man would not question this rare gift. But Bruce had never considered himself wise. He could feel the soft mattress beneath him, the warm blankets covering his bare flesh, the rasp of them as he moved. He was still weak, he could feel it in his limbs but it could not touch him until he let the world in and surrendered his foolish joy. He turned his head on the pillow and felt it conform to the mask he still wore. He was still Batman? He froze, giving the illusion of sleep he felt the world more carefully. A computer buzzed softly not far away, the woosh of many fans keeping the machinery cool, there was a breathing that did not match his own and pressed against his side was a constant pressure through the blankets that pulsed warm and alive. There was a soft moan and something settled on his stomach.

Bruce opened his eyes almost laughed at what the strange world in which he lived had given to him. He lay in the Batcave in his bed, stripped bare save his mask and the underwear he wore under his suit, his armor in a messy pile by the bed and curled carefully into his side lay the Knight. The Knights body lay facing him, one arm curled beneath his head as a pillow, the other tossed possessively across Bruce's waist. He was fully dressed, and the Batcave lay unmolested. It looked as though exhaustion had pulled him under where he laid, his legs tucked close so that he did not dangle from the bed.

Bruce let out a breath that felt like a laugh. He had been forced to trust another person and his world had not fallen apart. In fact it was beginning to look like the world of Batman was beginning to grow to incorporate more than his broken family. Logically he knew it was foolish to open himself up to such heartbreak. He had no need to trust or feel but when he thought about how life had been without the strange addition laying beside him now he could taste the stagnancy and the way the world seemed to be against him. Illogically he wanted to pull The Knight up and to fall back into sleep with someone who cared about him held tight in his arms.

"Batman?" Sleepy green eyes blinked up at him, his face unusually open, his walls not yet in place and Batman felt another surge of desire. "You okay now? I didn't mean to sleep but I hadn't in days." A yawn broke his face. "Too worried you would go die on me."

Bruce did not answer save for an uncharacteristic cryptic smile. He watched as the almost sleeping man tried to move his arm and realized where it was wrapped around him, he looked at it shocked for a second and then reached to touch the exposed skin of Bruce's chest, his face relaxing further when it was warmed with sleep, not the cold stickiness he associated with illness.

"Just worn out." Bruce finally answered. "I was on strict bed rest when I went to the bat signal." Straight white teeth bit delicately at red lips in distress.

"Sleep." He mumbled, curling back into Batman's side, not willing to get up no matter what qualms the Bat had about it. "No more dying."

He purposefully left his hand against Batman's bared chest, hoping that if he was still then it would be allowed to stay and measure the beating of his heart. He jumped when a hand fell on his shoulder, fingertips brushing up and down his arm he stayed still, afraid even to think of what was happening. The gentle touch stopped and Joker wanted to scratch his arm, to take away the strange tingling Batman had left. But it was pressing against him now, urging him up until he let it move him. He wriggled up the bed and found himself warm and tucked against too much bare flesh, the blanket rode down and the cool air brushed over Batman's chest. The arm pulled gently again and he lay with his head laying on shoulder and chest, his hand finding no place to go but directly over the Batman's heart.

He lay frozen until the Bat's breathing evened out with sleep and his heart slowed. Finally he allowed his stiff body to relax and to look carefully into his sleeping face. It would have been funny- a sleeping Batman wearing nothing but his mask, some horrendous joke, but it was not in him to laugh. What was happening to him?

So maybe he had thought about it a million times, about the Bat finally understanding what they should be, but to happen like this… To be himself but not himself, he was the Joker but he was not, he was…a different version of himself. No more or less truly him than any other face he had put on. But he had adopted qualities of humans. Worry, trust, that weird fuzzy feeling in his chest like he had somehow ingested a mountain of cotton candy and all of the world's cutest, happiest, bunnies. Joker had worries of course…when would the Bat show? What if he was already out at play with another? He had trusted, trusted the Bat to play, to live, to be there for him. He had even had glimpses of the weird fuzzies and thumping in his chest when his blade had slipped into particularly gruesome murderers, watching the life and horror in their faces as they realized what had happened to their own victims was finally happening to them…But this was different.

Same obsession, same people, only this way with this face those people, or rather the Bat, could actually see the soul that lay beneath and that soul had a twin. Batman groaned pitifully in his sleep, his muscles tensing, turning his soft fleshy pillow into a rock beneath him. Instinctually Joker threw a leg over Batman's, his arm wrapping around him in a half embrace and the struggling stopped, his rock becoming welcoming once more, the arm tightened protectively around him. He smiled and pressed a chaste kiss to the tan chest. No he was not loosing himself, he was finally part of a joke that would not end with himself in pain.

Joker woke slowly, aware that several hours had passed. Usually he woke repeatedly, the sleep of the restless and the paranoid. Having spent so many hours unconscious he had a feeling that he must have missed something. Batman was still sleeping like the dead Joker imagined he had more color now, that what could be seen of his face did not look so grim. He was warm and comfortable and Batman's heartbeat was in his ear, he was tempted to ignore his mind which already tore him from his peace, but there was black paint on the Bats chest, old and smudging. He extracted his legs, saved only by the blankets that had separated them but he was hopelessly lost as the possessive arms curled around him tighter, engulfing him. A shock of panic scorched through him. What if Batman woke and his makeup was too old and his scars peered through the putty and black? It was too early to lay down his cards, he was not done playing this game! Maybe he would never stop playing…

He had never before wished to have spent more of his life with other people but he wished he knew now how to escape Batman's arms so they would be there when he wanted them again. It was cheap and he knew it but he let his hand trace the outline of his collar bone, hoping of all things that Batman was ticklish. A hint of breath was all the warning he got before strong arms pulled him until he lay flush on top of the other man. He should have figured any kind of attack would result in anyone Bats was protecting to be drawn closer.

Fuck. He did not breath, he did not move. All the wrong things were in all the right places and it would be a lot of fun if Bats was awake but that was exactly what could not happen. He slipped his arms down, trying fruitlessly to reach behind his own back and free himself but the motion caused his body to wriggle against Batman. There was a low rumble in the chest he laid on and the arms that held him in place moved finally of their own accord. He let out a sigh of relief when they uncrossed, he could finally free himself. But the arms continued to move, hand s tracing delicately over his back to rest finally on his ass, waiting for him to writhe on top of him once again.

How could this be happening? A giggle was forcing its way up his throat and his cheeks were hot with blood. His identity would not be revealed by the Bats molesting hands! But he could feel Batman's rising arousal hot against his own and couldn't help just one shallow thrust. A beautiful throaty groan filled his ears as he tumbled quickly off the man- off the bed to fall finally free to the cold stone floor gasping for breath. He picked himself off the floor quickly, hand coming to his face, wary of wandering eyes and fading makeup but Batman did not wake. He only reached out in his sleep, a soft barely audible whimper escaping his throat. Punch him, stab him, shoot him and you scarcely drew a breath from him, now he whimpered piteously just to make Jokers legs feel weak.

He turned his back on the sleeping man and took in the Batcave as a whole. The cave was monstrously huge and every nook glinted with toys that called to him but the need for a mirror trumped it all. There was a small bathroom close by, Joker wondered how many nights Batman spent here, maybe too weak to go anywhere else. He banished the though as he closed the door behind him.

A little smudged but serviceable, the makeup putty on his face had stayed well, smoothing his characteristic scars into smooth cheeks once again. It only took a minute to make it perfect. Not his tried and true Joker face but at least he still got to wear the black makeup, the clash of white and black always had made him smile. Assured his face was in place he ventured out into the Batcave. A spy in enemy territory, or perhaps it was a fan on a pilgrimage to see what they had always dreamed of, an archeologist waking up one day to find their night cup had turned into the Holy Grail.

Old suits lined the walls in glass chambers, frozen in time. His fingers trailed over the glass of the very first Bat suit, a tear ran through the fabric along the side of the torso, long and ragged. The first time they had met face to face, it made him glad to see that they had not sewn it shut after all this time. But his attention was drawn deeper into the cave, past computers and contraptions, suits and vehicles, it was its own section of the cave, illuminated by screens and individual lights that set off the contents of this almost museum.

Faces of those he had killed just recently gleamed at him, their smiles sinister as if promising retribution. As if that was going to happen. Artifacts littered the area, set tactfully against the walls, curving around him as he stepped forward. Umbrellas, Knives, guns, coins, suits, masks, a million trinkets collected from as many villains. They were in sections, Firefly, Killer Crock, Bane, they all had their photos set amongst the toys they once possessed but under each profile a new word had been added, harsh bold red. DECEASED.

Penguin glared up at him through the plastic sheen. Not long now, he thought as he glared in turn. He had not forgotten what the witless bird had done to his Bat. He would not be allowed to escape the fate of his gang, but he would be savored, safe only until Batman was able once more to survive them all.

His glare lingered but slipped away, now was not the time, no use in dwelling over the life of the soon to be dead. He walked slowly to the center of the room, the largest pictures and the most trinkets, toys of many colors that had once flashed and buzzed with life and now sat as if frozen in time, stopped mid-laugh, not dead, immortalized. He stared up at the photo, it laughed at him, taunted him.

"I am glad you are not going after him." The voice startled him, either Batman was very good or he was losing his paranoid edge.

He did not stop walking until their shoulders brushed and they both stood staring into the eyes of The Joker.

"Why?" He was uncomfortable, this was too close to the truth but he could not stop, how could he when the Bat might reveal more about them without even knowing? The memories of only a few minutes before painted over the scene now, hot lust and possession coursing unwanted through him. He was ridiculously thankful for the long black shirt and black pants the man had donned with his mask, hiding still.

"He is the most dangerous person I have ever faced." They both turned from the picture, not wanting now to see it. Bruce's hand wandered unconsciously to his own side, tracing old scars. "Sometimes I think of how all this will end and I can't help but think that it will be the two of us. Batman and the Joker destroying each other so completely that Gotham will forget we ever existed."

"Does it hurt?" He pointed to the arms wrapped tight around old wounds and in return he got a surprised look, understandable, he did not know why he asked or in fact why he cared.

"Not Really. Not anymore." Bats raised his shirt. It was not as if he had not seen him in less clothing but as the black fabric revealed perfect muscled abs his heart beat faster in his chest. A scar appeared long and jagged that he had not noticed in the darkness before, the skin white, marring the perfect flesh. Other scars began and ended, crisscrossing the skin. His hand was out before he could stop it, running along the bumps, so much like himself.

"He gave me my first scar as Batman." There was a small dark chuckle that Joker could feel through his fingers as he leapt to the next scar, unable to stop himself. "He gave me most of my scars."

His hands had traced over all the scars visible, he remembered them, each blow, each twin on his own body, he wanted more. It only took a glance, and when blue eyes locked with his he knew Bats understood. Batman lifted the black shirt and let it fall to the ground. His hands were everywhere; scars littered the skin, youthful flesh a mangled battle zone. But there were some that held no beauty, no history. Large garish holes marred his chest, another on his back, the scars felt cruel under his fingertips. Some wounds pulsed red and angry under their bandages, not yet given the chance to heal.

Batman's hands reached out to him, settling on his hips, holding him, his voice was dark and intimate, like they were the only two people alive. "Sometimes I wonder if any of us any really had a chance to live a normal life. It was the Joker that once told me all it takes is one bad day. One day separates the masses of Gotham from its night terrors." His hands trailed slowly over the dark leather, moving over ribs to hold his arms gently, not stopping their progress of warm bare flesh. "And then you spend your whole life trying to make up for that day and it does not matter what side you are on. All this life has to offer any of us is the fear that whatever you stand for, whatever that day has done to you will fail."

Their hearts were speeding and the voice fell heavy in the air, hot against both their lips, a mix of the darkness of Batman and something deeply human. "Do you still have a chance?"

"No."

Under the watchful eyes of their painted peers, caught in the illumination from the Jokers oversized photograph Batman caught the Knight in a kiss.


	6. Chapter 6

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

Not in all the life Joker remembered had he been kissed. He had used lips to sneer and smile, to pout and even to place a few rare pecks on others in either torment or only just recently in genuine care. But they had never been caught in a lovers kiss. When Batman held him close with the darkness closing all around them and the lips he had watched sneer for years brushed against his own his heart stuttered in his chest. The world around them melted and it did not matter that they were Batman and Joker or even the Knight, all that mattered is that it was them and for the first time in his life he felt the innocents of true happiness.

Batman pushed past the gently brushing kiss and melded their lips together as desire and need built in them both. Joker knew nothing but the press of their bodies, the strange fire that burned within them both and made his whole life until now fade to grey. Batman's arms were warm and engulfing around him, his mouth undeniably masculine and perfect. The wet sounds of their joined lips with the heady pant of Batman drove away Jokers uncertainty and his mind melted. He surrendered his genius for human feeling he wanted more. He kissed back, hungry and searching, wanting to taste this perfection, to know the Batman in ways no one else ever could.

His hands had been frozen at his sides but now wandered up the heated chest before him, grasping and stroking. He could feel flesh give way to cloth and he lightened his touch over the bandage but Batman gasped painfully into his mouth, their lips resting against each other but stilled. Blue eyes were shut tight in pain and Joker closed his lips over Batman's, a temporary goodbye to those lips, an unwillingness to be rid of this new communication, a silent 'please be okay'. Although Batman returned his small kiss, his own reassuring response, they broke apart in pain.

Joker looked down at their bodies, pressed tight together, chests flush; he could see his own hand resting over a dirty white bandage, see how Batman was lost in a haze of pain. Carefully he pulled his hand away to find blood red smeared on his palm. Deft fingers crept to the edge of the soiled bandage, pulling at it to reveal the harsh wound.

"It's infected." Batman had finally caught his breath, and the jolts of pain were ebbing.

"I have had worse." Batman was staring at his lips, he could feel the burning gaze and his own eagerly responding body but he ignored all of it.

"And if you do not treat it it will be worse. When was the last time you changed the bandages?" He was pulling back now, wanting to take in all of the man before him, to look into those guilty eyes, so clear under his cowl.

"How do you manage to take care of yourself? You are always so preoccupied it is amazing you remember to eat. What did you do before I was here to watch you kill yourself?" Even villains knew better than to let themselves waste away, he of all people knew that. He could still feel his heart hammering in his chest, still remember the feel of Batman against his lips…. How human, it was as if with each minute they became more human, gods discovering their mortal selves, and the only one who did not see it was the Bat. How long could this volatile connection last when Batman insisted he was not human? That the vigilante they all loved was above mere bullets and death? How do you tell a bat that he was mortal and the only Achilles heal the Joker or the Knight would ever have?

Batman was smiling indulgently now, seemingly unworried about his injuries, one of his hands had worked their way up to trail distractingly over the other mans lips, lovingly caressing his cheek. "I do have someone to help me but when I brought you back with me I had to tell him not to come. I do not have the right to give away his identity or mine by having him here."

"Then why not have him wear a mask like us?" Joker refused to be distracted; he couldn't help but lick his lips to erase the trail of fire Batman had created, getting what he wanted now meant nothing if Batman died in the process. "Bats I can help you with these but you need more help than I know how to give."

"Somehow I don't think a mask is going to protect his identity. He is too thoroughly himself to be anyone else." Batman grinned at the look that earned him, his smile easy and quick as if he had lost some of his brooding demeanor.

"Then I will wait somewhere else, we do not have many options left, you need help."

"I am okay for now; we can take care of these. If they worsen I will ask him to come." Batman was looking at him with eyes that looked almost out of place, soft and venerable in the impenetrable black mask, almost…open; something had changed between them.

Joker eyed the wounds; he had seen the careless die from less. That strange comforting feeling inside him reared its ugly head and its dark wings twisted something inside him into fear. Batman could not be allowed to toy with his own life like this. The emotions whirled inside him making it hard to concentrate, his brilliant analytical brain was crippled by fear for him, and then it came to him, a smile creeping over his face. The emotions in his emotionless soul had a twin in batman's too-fond gaze.

"Bats…" Joker twirled his arms around Batman's chest, laying his head down in his strong shoulder, relishing in the beat of his heart, the heat of his skin before looking up at him through thick blond lashes, his mouth a desperate pout. He did not have to fake the worry in his eyes. "Please get the help you need. For me?" Heat burned his cheeks as he rose to his tip toes to press a kiss to the others lips. Batman leaned into him but he deepened the kiss only for a second, pulling back when his heart threatened to slam out of his chest.

"I-" the words looked as if they had been stolen from him; his lips were red and kiss bruised. "I can't."

"Because of your identity? I already told you it does not matter to me. You laid here for hours with me and you woke up wearing your mask. I will not betray you. I promise." And then Batman did something he had never done before. He consciously decided to place his trust in another.

"Okay."

Together they made their way back to the medical table. They walked awkwardly side by side, unsure of themselves at first, both unused to the idea of comfort. But a misstep brought their bodies closer, their arms brushed and when their hands touched they entwined and never let go.

Batman sat on the table after gentle prodding and hands pushing him into place. An intercom consol sat within reach and Batman tentatively touched the button.

His mouth formed the beginning of a name but stopped, unwilling to make it that easy, he did not know how to start. He wanted to give as little away as possible but he felt awful for having stayed out of contact this long when he knew how Alfred worried over him. He began again.

"The Knight and I are in the Batcave. I am going to need some additional assistance with some of my injuries. I am leaving it up to you if you would like to wear a mask when you come down." The voice cleared again and Alfred's voice floated over the speaker.

"Right away sir. I am assuming that sir has not offered our guest any refreshments since arriving?" Bruce suppressed a wince, two 'Sirs' in one sentence, Alfred was less than thrilled with him. The Knight caught his attention with a grin, mouthing the word 'Sir' with a mock serious expression, half bowing to him.

"No, I have not." Bruce did wince this time even through the smile the Knight had earned with his antics. How long had they been in the cave and he had never offered food? When was the last time the Knight had the chance to eat at all?

"Right. I will be down straight away." The consol clicked off.

"Sir?" The Knight laughed as he stepped forward to stand in between Batman's legs, leaning against both him and the bed to remove the soiled bandages, happier now that he had his way.

"He has been with me since the very beginning; I have known him all my life but he is proper to a fault. He-ow-" Batman let out a surprised gasp when the bandage pulled away- it was more infected than he thought. "Is my family." Bruce did not know why he had given this information away so freely at first but when Alfred appeared at the entrance and he watched Alfred as the man first saw Batman and The Knight together he knew. This was the closest he would ever get to bringing someone home to his parents.

Alfred's stern expression disappeared the moment his eyes fell on his ward, there was a smile on his face, the emotion between the two men as naked as Bruce was without his Batsuit. Bruce was letting the other man take care of him. The Knight was leaning into him and Bruce was letting some of his weight rest against the other man, a strange fondness marking his normally stern features. Alfred wondered as he drew closer if they had any idea how in love they were.

The Knight looked startled when Alfred set the tray down but he finished pulling the last bandage free before relinquishing his position against Batman.

"Please. Do help yourself." Alfred clearly directed the words to The Knight, letting Bruce know that he was not out of trouble quite yet. The man nodded a small thanks before snatching a sandwich he had not realized he had wanted in until he held it. Alfred stepped closer, not between Bruce's legs but close enough to examine the wounds.

"I am surprised you did not let them get worse before calling me. Although I do appreciate you making my job easier." He was already pulling bottles from the cabinets around them, Bruce kept his mouth shut but the Knight swallowed the food in his mouth and for the first time since entering the Batcave his voice was unwelcomed by the Bat.

"Actually I made him. He insisted he has had worse." Batman glared at him but the smile he received in return was infectiously bright; he knew exactly what he was doing.

"Indeed." Bruce prayed that was all Alfred would say but the man was in no such mood, was that a smile glinting behind his straight-faced maturity? "He has had much worse. You should have seen him come home before the armor improvements." He poured a particularly vicious liquid into the most infected wound but Alfred seemed unperturbed by the inevitable pain this caused. "In fact, one of the very first nights as Batman I found him down here with a sewing needle trying to stitch his side back together."

"A sewing needle?" The stifled giggle was more than apparent and Bruce welcomed the fresh flood of pain from his treated wounds, it cut the heat rising to his cheeks.

"He had this notion that they were all quite the same, made a bloody mess." Alfred finished sanitizing the first wound and as he moved on to the next he seemed gentler, some of his silent antagonism sated by the fiery blaze creeping onto Batman's face and the amused laughter coming from the Knight.

"Of course he does manage to get his share of other injuries." The Knights face was a perfectly schooled look of interest, the mirth bubbling out of him. "Just last winter he insisted on chasing Killer Crock into the harbor and then spending the remainder of the night locked down here. By morning he was so ill I was nearly forced to carry him out."

Stifled laughter broke past his lips but his smile was strained, something deep inside of him rejecting the idea of Batman being ill, he took half a step closer to the other man and rested his hand on top of Batman's, he didn't look up as their fingers curled together.

"My young Master can be quite the handful when the mood strikes him."

"Like some people I know." Batman muttered under his breath but Alfred's eyes were twinkling with hidden amusement and the Knight was covering his smile with the hand not held in his own. It was more than worth a little embarrassment to see his family so happy.

"Do you remember the first time you used the bat launcher?" Bruce's eyes widened and he pulled the Knight so he toppled over and their bodies collided, his hands covering the other man ears. Alfred stepped back as the two fought playfully, the Knight finally ending up trapped in Batman's arms but his ears clear. Alfred did not repress his smile.

"We were testing new devices in the cave and he launched into a part under construction. He was half way up when the boxes it had caught on broke, taking down an half of the Batcave and sending him into the water below."

Batman had to hold tight so the man in his arms did not fall to the floor as he laughed; once he regained his composer he twisted in his arms to face him.

"So the Bat is human after all. You are just lucky that I have better luck with your toys than you did. It could have ended badly if it fell when I was carrying you out of Arkham." A teasing wink made Batman hold him tighter.

"It is not luck that got us out of there, it was you. Actually when we are done here I might have something for you." Alfred cleared his throat and the Knight stepped out of the Bats arms, falling naturally to his bedside. The rest of the wounds were treated with a new gentleness and as they fell into comfortable silence Bruce let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding. When Alfred finished the man did not immediately turn to clean the mess the duo had made, his gloved hand came to Bruce's shoulder and squeezed for a moment before Alfred enveloped him in a quick uncharacteristic hug. As soon as he released him he quickly busied himself with work. Bruce sat in stunned silence, realizing that Alfred had seen something profound in all this that he had not. There was hope yet for both Batman and Bruce Wayne to be happy.

Bruce put on a new shirt, chilled in the cool air and watched Alfred for a moment longer; he had chosen to come down maskless. Bruce had always known he was a closet optimist, maybe after so many years together it was rubbing off on him.

"Come on." Batman led the way to his old suits and pressed a panel on the wall. An array of old gear and replacements opened next to the glass case. Bruce pulled out one of his older belts and wrapped it around the silent Knight's waist, it hung at an angle, just a little too large but it suited him somehow. He chose several belt sections and slid them into place.

"What is this?" His hands were hovering old the belt as if afraid to touch it.

"Tools. How can you expect to keep up, let alone save me, if you do not have at least a few of the same tools that I do?" Batman laughed at the wonder on the others face, nimble fingers immediately caressing the new toys. There was nothing dangerous, mostly climbing and distraction tools but within the hour the Knight was repelling from the high beams, his laughter floating to where Batman sat far below.

Batman watched his companion at play, analyzed with critical eyes the adeptness of the moves, how they rivaled even his own. One bad day had done this to them both…but what could profoundly good days do for them now? Could it be enough to bring the Knight to his side? Could he be enough reason for the Knight to change his mission, his life? Could they work together and actually be happy? Did joy exist in the darkness?

"Master …Batman." Alfred hurried towards them. "The Batsignal."


	7. Chapter 7

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

Bruce was at the computer consol before anyone could say another word. The tapped signals of the police frequencies resonated through the cave. A robbery gone wrong. A priceless jewel collection normally held in Gotham City Banks' high security vaults was being appraised on the high-rises topmost levels. The robbers had taken hostages in the banks foyer, they had dozens of civilians at their mercy and tempers were running high…they had barricaded themselves in hours ago.

"Damn it." Batman growled, his lips already set in a thin line, fully the Bat even without his armor. "They should have called me earlier; I should have been out there!"

"They cannot expect you to be on patrol every night in this condition." Alfred stepped forward, eyes taking in all the police data tracing across the screen.

"They don't. Gordon knew I wouldn't be out." His fist slammed into the edge on the consol, the metal thudding painfully against the bared flesh of his fist. "He kept this from me."

Without warning warm arms encircled Batman's waist, their weight felt heavily through the thin civilian cloth. "He is trying to protect you." The voice was in his ear, not patronizingly soothing but matter of fact as a chin rested against his shoulder. "From yourself." One arm traced its way over his muscled chest, resting against his beating heart as adrenalin forced it into a dangerous rhythm. "It is harder to do than you would think."

"I have to go." Bruce closed his eyes against the images on the screen and the cops voices issuing over the speakers. He was trying to hold on to his anger but the feeling was slipping away under those hands, the beating of his heart was calming to match the one beating so close to his own.

"I know..." The arms tightened for a second in an almost embrace around him. "…can I drive?"

Bruce raised his stinging hand from the cold metal and held the hand that lay over his heart. "I said I have to go."

"And where you go I go. You made your token protest to me going and it is just as useless and obligatory as me asking you to stay." Bruce could not help the smile that pulled at his lips or the way his heart picked up speed once more, he could feel Alfred's eyes on them but he didn't care. "So now that we have established all that…can I drive?" Batman opened his eyes to the pictures of police cars and a barred building and laughed.

"Not a chance."

Bruce was able to pull on his modified Batsuit by himself but the Knight never left his side. As scarred and bruised skin disappeared in a veil of Kevlar those eyes were on him, those hands trailing softly over armor and skin. He never said how foolish it was to go, never pointed out how dangerous his injuries were, they both understood and they both knew that they were creatures beyond words.

Batman slipped into the Batmobile and as the lithe figure slipped into the seat next to him, a mirror image, an almost partner, he realized how this changed things, changed everything.

Batman had been untouchable, no family, no friends, a black demon who seemed almost…immortal. But now he strode into the night with a companion. If Batman was hurt he could recover but if this man was hurt, if he were to die…Batman was no longer untouchable.

Bruce wanted to say something meaningful, to let him know exactly what this meant, to go into battle like this, together. He had worked with the police on the odd occasion but this was different. He was responsible for the Knights life and at the same time he was trusting his own life to the Knights hands. 'I have never had a partner before.' Sounded too official, too permanent, but those are the words he wanted to say, the ones that refused to be put out of mind. That together they could be something brilliant, something beautiful and terrible, that even if no one else in the world mattered… they would not be alone anymore.

Too many things weighed on his mind. It was not only death that could touch Batman now, he had made himself vulnerable. If the Knight were to slip, to kill, if he could not be trusted and more death bloodied his hands it would dirty both of them …it would destroy what Batman stood for. He could not imagine his Knight killing these petty criminals, not the man that took such pains with him, the first person he could not push away…but they were driving into a situation where bullets would be fired. What if it was too much? What if the Knight could not change? Not even for him? He could not ask him to change, to become something else, something more like himself. He could not bear to hear the answer but they could not continue…

_'Partner_ ' How sweet the word sounded in his mind, how completely foreign and unreachable.

"You cannot kill them." He was a coward, and the words tasted bitter- a temporary fix, a prolonging of their tenuous dance.

"Tonight we play by your rules, can't have you worrying about me killing people. You will get yourself killed and where would that leave me?." There was a smile on his face but Batman could see through it, see how unsure he was, not ready to promise anything real, anything beyond tonight. Batman knew that he would never be able to compromise, never let the Knight continue to kill. His soul, his promise to his parents demanded this of him and now all the power lay with the Knight. If he chose to keep his own path- if he chose to kill Penguin how many hours of blissful ignorance did they have left to them? How long did they have to pretend that they could be together always? The clock ticked down their time together with every breath Penguin took unrepentant in Gotham.

His heart was tearing…the moment of truth was approaching and they were running towards it tonight, tempting fate to steel their time away from them so he did what he always did when emotions began to take hold on him. Batman steeled himself as cold as the harsh world they lived in.

"How are you in hostile situations?" Those maddening hands drifted to his leg, moving against him, pulling him back to this reality, back to them- just an innocent touch, exploring the way he always seemed to. The touch was reverent, as if he was memorizing the feel of him, taking each moment and hiding it away in his mind where it could never be taken from him..

"You know my track record."

Batman repressed a wince; he could see the bodies in his mind's eye clearer now that they drove towards more nameless criminals. Without Batman there what would the Knight do with these men? What beautiful ironic fate would be their end? "But I have never actually seen it."

"I can take care of myself and you if necessary. Alfred is right you know, you should have stayed home."

Batman was ripped firmly back into Bruce, all feelings and humanity. "How do you know his name?" He watched the man out of the corner of his eye; his face was calm, his slim shoulders shrugging. Could the Knight see the turmoil within him? Did he know how every touch drew the anger and numbness from him like poison from a wound?

"He told me. Don't worry I still do not know your other name." His entire body seemed to lean closer to Batman. "I told you I do not care what your mask is called." He was smiling again, knowingly, accepting, and Batman could not hold on to his frigidity in face of it. "I think he liked me." He chuckled.... "How strange, I don't think anyone has ever liked me before."

'I like you' was on his lips and in his mind but he crushed the desire, he could not expose himself like that, not when everything they had could crash around them this very night. They both already knew the truth in the unsaid words but Batman needed that safety, that protection.

"He thinks you are good for me." Batman said instead. "He has always been afraid of what would happen to me if he died."

"You don't let a lot of people in do you?" The Knight stretched like a cat, arching his back and leaning over the consol between the two of them. He rested his head on Batman's shoulder, his eyes closed, trusting Batman to get them there alive. "There are not a lot of people that could understand you Bats. Alfred who was here from the beginning and now…"

"you." Batman sighed, his eyes closing against the pain of surrender, against the painful sickening thud of his heart. So it was too late to save any part of himself should this fail, pride, body nor soul was safe from this man who knew him better than he had any right to.

The Knight softened his touch, bringing a hand up to hold onto Batmans arm, just under his own head. He must feel what he did to the Bat, could see the subtle changes in his face that meant pain and suffering and something so tragic it could only be love.

"Yes. Me."

Batman hid the car a few streets down from the bank and its swarms of hungry eyed reporters and worried cops. The Knight gave him a crooked look, a silent 'of course you would' and bounded to Batman's side, taking the launcher from Batman's belt and firing it effortlessly into the sky.

"You know you have your own now."

"I know." His arms came around Batman, twined like dark lovers hiding in the night and waited until dark arms surrounded him in warm surrender, a sad smile creeping onto Batman's face. "But I like this way." Together they rose above their city, easily making their way to the bank over the rooftops.

Batman threw a small hovering camera into the air, watching it fly high above them, its silent motor pushing it through the sky. There were seven men visible spread out in the room, hostages at their feet and easily with reach of most of them. The stolen jewels sat in oversized duffle bags in the center of the room. Dozens of lives flickered in that room, balanced on a precipice, depending on him to save them…Batman turned back to the Knight and grabbed his shoulder in his gloved hand, demanding his full attention.

The men above them were hardened criminals- men that would shoot at them- men that would take both their lives if they could- men that only a few weeks ago the Knight would have killed with a flourish and no regret. "You cannot kill them. Any of them or I will have to-" Have to take you to jail? To Arkham? Have to give up on you and watch a part of myself wither and die?

The Knight put a finger to Batman's lips, saving him from having to decide, to voice what stood on the line tonight.

"I promised. I told you. These fools are nothing to me." He offered a wan smile, a small dark introspective reflection of Batman's own mind. "They mean nothing and you…are everything." The Knight glanced down only for a moment, forcing his eyes to focus on Batman again.

Batman felt a humorless chuckle rise within himself. How perfect they were for each other, how ill practiced at these fragile human emotions.

"Now what do we do? What would you do if you were alone?"

Batman swallowed thickly, trying to ignore the digit resting on his lips, he turned away ignoring for now the hand that brushed his face, gazing at the scene once more.

"There are seven of them at least."

"Four for me and three for you. Perfect!" The Knights smile was unabashed in the face of Batman scowl, both glad to be talking about risking their lives rather than their emotions."I get the extra. You are injured!"

" I am The Batman."

The Knight rolled his eyes and put on a fake pout, completely at ease with their immediate future. "Three each and then we will share the last."

Batman nodded solemnly, focusing himself on nothing but the dangers ahead, he readied his launcher "If I don't get there first." And then he was gone.

The Knight only took a moment to catch up and then they were moving together as one through the night, high above the tied hands of the police. Neither had ever had a partner or an equal in anything but this- the feeling of someone next to you- of someone who understands too well- was as familiar as breathing.

They landed on the floor just below the men, their agile feet balanced on thin strips of concrete. Batman released his tenuous hold, tossing a small black explosive onto the window, The Knight took this opportunity to flick Batman's cape away, monitoring the pace of the other man's heart in the subdued flashing on his belt, he would have to ask Alfred to make him a device to track the Bats health. Batman glowered over at him. Busted. He smile widely in return and motioned to continue. For now the Bat was okay, safe in his mind by concentrating on the here and now and as for his Body…he would take it upon himself to make sure the bat came to no harm.

They climbed to the next level on the other side of the building, an abandoned area where no one heard the breaking glass. What they did hear was the explosion of the far window.

They burst into the room while they were all dazed and preoccupied; Batarangs and fists flew through the air before the men realized they were not alone. A gun raised across the room, a .22, aimed before the Knight could take a step in retaliation, before he could voice his cry- but Batman could. A dark shadow he swooped onto the gunman, knocking the pistol away, his heavy fists slamming the man to the ground to join it. Neither was fazed, they fought on. The men were growing desperate; the hostages were out of the way for the most part now, the unlucky souls trapped in the middle scrambling out from under foot.

Two men were diverging on Batman, The Knight took off running, it was like a dance. A whole new dance, it was violent and crazed and impromptu and like nothing he had ever done before. He had a dance partner now. He leaped forward and the strong arms of Batman wrapped around his waist, propelling him forward, his inertia taking down one grunt, the backwards swing of Batman's body crushing the other. They were beyond words now, they shared a body a soul, and strangest of all a purpose. They were…partners.

Batman froze and from the corner of his eye saw the Knight do the same as the man he had been fighting fell to his feet. By the gaping window the light of the moon lit the leader of the group as he snatched the discarded pistol from the ground and leveled it at the Knights chest.

"I expected you might show Knight but bringing along your boyfriend?" One of the crumpled men groaned in pain but he was unable to stand, the man never looked away from the duo, his face only grew harsher as the piteous sound came again as if disgusted with the humanity of his companion.

"How cute." The man spat . "You won't attack me now will ya Bats?" Batman's eyes flicked between the gun and the Knight. He saw the thin leather costume, how little protection it afforded him, he saw the manic twinkle in the criminal's eyes -but more than anything he watched the Knight, afraid of what he would do. The fool and his gun were tempting a killer's instinct, Batman waited for the tightening of his body, the fire to consume him, a burst of cruel laughter - but he stayed still, calm, perfect.

"You Bats, you are afraid I will kill your little boy toy but it's not you I am worried about." The man grinned, his smile a little too wide, too desperate. "The Bat doesn't kill!" A burst of laughter shook the gun; the hairpin trigger pulled back more with every breath, Batman felt a new fear wash over him.

"It's you I am worried about, you kill big old baddies, but you don't seem too worried at all do ya? Maybe…Maybe I am pointing at the wrong man." The gun shifted so fast Batman had only taken a single step before his heart plummeted. The gun was trained on his heart.

The Knights body tightened like a spring, his body arching like a cat ready to pounce, Batman could not keep his eyes on the gun.

"Put the gun down!" Batman's growl pierced the room, the deep resonance making the man in front of his quiver but its real purpose was only vaguely successful. Beside him the Knight raised his hands slightly in defense but part of the violent coil holding him frozen in place released.

"It doesn't have to be like this! We can all walk out of here, and you can go on fucking each other. They said they would give me a helicopter, all you have to do is let me out of here…"

"NO!" A woman's scream broke the relative calm as a child broke free from her protecting embrace, a baby girl, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Don't hurt Batman!" She cried as she ran and the man snapped, he balanced on the edge of a knife and her crying face pushed him off the sharp edge.

Bang. Bang. BANG. Three shots exploded from the chamber faster than eyes could see. The only proof of their existence was the way Batman crumpled as he hit the wall and the heart-wrenching scream that was torn from The Knight's throat.

The gunman was running, and everyone was screaming. The woman was scrambling towards the child but she was too far ahead. The child bellowed as she was snatched off the ground and into the crooks arms, the hot muzzle of the gun buried in her brown hair.

"BATS!" The Knight fell to his knees, his elbows smashing into the ground surrounding Batman's head, hovering over him, protecting him.

Blue eyes blinked up at him through a haze of pain and he pulled in a ragged, wet breathe. The Knights hands were everywhere, his chest, his face, his lips- but there was time for no more. Batman did not hesitate once he had the breath to speak.

"Save. Her." The Knight froze for only a second, his teeth piercing his lip until blood flowed bitter into his mouth but he could not refuse when inches from him blue eyes begged in agony.

A drop of blood escaped his ruby lips and fell on Batman, the only touch he would allow now, the only touch they had time for when the Knights mind raced with fear and Batman's with focused desperation. Strong armored arms pushed at him, forcing him away and the Knight did not look back. He ran.

The crook stood in the middle of the roof, his charge screaming in his arms, silent and alone in the dark night. Just like him.

"They said it would be here. They promised a helicopter would be here." Soft. Broken. Hopeless. Pathetic.

"A real criminal would know better." The words were a deep growl but they were not like Batman's, Batman's voice promised justice, this was twisted in agony, slick as death. "A real criminal could tell when people are lying, they are the ones manipulating. But you..." He was stalking forward now, shoulders hunched, eyes flashing insane revenge, malice. Death.

The fool whimpered as The Knight stepped into a beam of light, more than a shadow, a demon of hell, blood dripping down his chin like a gothic vampire. The child twisted free, running past them both, her little heels clicking on the stairs away as the criminals shifted clumsily backward, tripping over himself.

"No…please."

"You waste of flesh! You want to take everything from me! FROM ME?!" He jetted forward, clutching the man by the lapels, pushing him over the edge, his upper body hanging over the dark precipice of the street below.

"No…" warm fluid saturated the man's pants, dripping down his legs as only inches away poison green eyes bore into his soul and red lips dripped blood.

A police searchlight from below fell on them, blinding the Knight. He could feel the man shift in his arms, wriggling, almost falling. No. Not like this. He wrenched him back, twisting them so the man would fall hard to the punishing ground. He felt it the same instant the sound cracked through the night, a sound whose twins still echoed in his mind with the image of the Bat falling. He reached out with the arm that did not sear with instant crippling fire, one last punch, the loud crack of his jaw making him smile even as it pushed him further back- even as his feet went out from under him only air lay beneath him.

"NO!" He heard it as he first began to fall, a lifetime passed in a second before he felt it, strong familiar arms holding him tight, his dark angel. Floors whipped by them before the grapple was fired, lights flashing behind his eyelids, the garish bulbs of reporters blinking like dying stars. Another endless moment before they caught and their fall slowed and finally stopped, frozen only a dozen floors above the ground he opened his eyes.

"Batman." He sobbed without tears, relief making his body melt against him. His legs twisted around Batman's waist, holding tight, freeing his arms to caress and hold, to pull their lips to meet in desperation. Blood smeared both of their mouths as their breaths came in a shallow pant. They spoke through their broken kiss, both asking at once…

"Are you okay?"

The Knight let out a breathy laugh and pressed a passing kiss to those well loved lips, his arms reaching to hold the line they dangled from, to hit the switch to pull them up, but Batman was already there, pulling them back to safety.

"I am just glad to be the one saving you for a change."

They landed on a relatively low building but they had no time to speak, to reassure or help. The police swarmed below, and the bulbs still flashed, catching the moment in time again and again, it was time to go. They managed to stay a step ahead, signaling the Batmobile to meet them on the empty street below. By the time the police appeared they were nothing but a trail of dirt in the wind.

They did not speak as they drove, but their eyes watched the each other carefully, measuring the blood lost, longing to touch but knowing now was not the time. It took half the normal time to return to the cave, the world around them whipping by so fast it did not have time to form before it was gone. The car was alive and warm as it slammed to a stop in the cave, its doors rising and its passengers tumbling out, stumbling in search of each other.

They met in front of the car, a tangle of black clad limbs and half formed words. They pulled each other further inside, needing to be assured, to see and feel.

"You did not kill him. He shot me and you kept your promise." Batman spoke as the Knight tore at the Kevlar, freeing his cape, letting it flutter, a forsaken shadow to the ground. The heavy chest plate released under his practiced grip, revealing purpled but intact skin. Three welts of purple and black- but whole and beautifully complete.

"I trusted you to live for me." The Knights hands traced over the revealed skin, reverent and greedy, taking in the heat of pooled blood. "I chose to believe in you." His hands traced over the welts again and again, gentle fingertips drawing a harsh breath. "I just…need to see you."

Batman ran his hands over the Knights arms, earning a wince and slick blood on his glove. He held the man still, examining the gash through the torn clothing, he could see now how shallow it was, how the bullet fired from only inches away in a moment of panic only grazed the flesh.

"You let me go after him, you trusted me to stop him and not kill him. "

Batman could not bear to look into the Knight's eyes, at the amazement and openness he found there. He crushed their bodies together, closing his eyes, protected in the familiar engulfing darkness. "I knew you would not kill him. I wanted to believe that even if I died that this…that we meant more to you than that.."

A laugh ghosted hot and alive over his face and the Knight twirled his arms around him, dancing across bare flesh. "What can I say?" His voice was soft and almost afraid, realizing for the first time that the words he was about to speak were true. "You bring out the good in me."

Batman took a deep breath and steeled himself against his fear. Fear that this was too much, fear that these emotions held too much power over him and pulled out of their embrace. His hand gently wiped the blood from the Knights lips. The Knight flinched away from the touch but Batman had made his resolution, he held his chin gently and fell into eyes as afraid as his own.

"I believe in you."

Neither remembered moving but there they were, locked in a kiss that tasted like blood and life and sweet surrender.

"Oh my." Alfred's trained polite voice cut through their blissful oblivion. The Knight took a deep breath, waiting for the rejection, the denial, for Batman to jump away from him but… instead he was held loosely in his arms and a deep happy laugh filled the cave, a strange unheard sound that made his heart jump.

"Hello Alfred. Sorry if we surprised you."

Alfred moved towards them, unfazed, he picked up the discarded pieces of the Batsuit armor and the Knight actually felt the heat of a blush rise to his face.

"I cannot say it is much of a surprise." Alfred looked over both of them with a critical eye, Bruce almost laughed again when he felt the Knight burrow further into his arms, this was strange for all of them. "I do however hope that you will clean yourselves up and bandage your wounds before partaking in any…extracurricular activities."

"Alfred!" Bruce almost laughed again, a grin stretched his face, he felt …light, lighter than he had in years, lighter than he could ever remember being. Bruce had always been this way, once he made a decision there was no going back, he was free of the choices that had weighed him down. Alfred returned his smile and nodded at the Knight.

"If you would like I can mend and wash your outfit as well."

The Knight looked down at himself, recovering now from emotions he did not understand, wanting to focus on something else. How many days had he spent in the hot leather? Blood crusted on the arm and on his collar, old sweat bound the cloth to him. He had always washed and mended his own clothing before now but he had been so swept away in being this black clad creature he had forgotten something existed beneath it.

"I think I should probably shower too…"

Batman followed him to the bathroom, he was almost afraid to turn around and face him, what did he think he was doing? He wanted to see more of the Bat, wanted to feel the life that always teetered on the edge of death, but he did not want to reveal himself. Being with the Bat like that now would leave so much more than his body naked.

"Toss me out your clothes." Batman stopped at the door, turning around politely even though the door was being shut behind him.

He stripped- his mask falling at last to the floor. The image in the mirror was strange and unfamiliar, from the tops of his cheek bones up his skin was a delicate white, below a mix of black and red. His green curls had faded, leaving golden blond with only a tinge of their former color. No. He did not want Batman to see him like this.

He opened the door only a crack, tossing out the cloths and shutting it quickly, he heard the other pause at the door, confused perhaps, but then move on. He stepped into the hot spray and watched the black paint and dried blood swirl down the drain, stain the water trailing over his body. Swirls of black and red made him smile, he felt better, clean, not only of grime but somehow of the world. He scrubbed at his face, feeling for the first time in ages water against his bared scars. He was so naked…so purely himself, part Joker, part Knight…and something without a name, something that belonged here…with Batman.

He stepped out of the spray, his body hot and pink, moist and human. He stepped in front of the mirror again; the green had faded even more but the scars….the scars were back, a delicate trace of white stretching up his cheeks, assuring that the Bat could never see him, not like this. A heavy fist knocked at the door, shaking him from his reprieve.

"There are towels inside and I can grab you a robe when you come out."

He opened the door a crack, only darkness lay beyond, Batman would not try to see him like this.

The Knight found the towels and wrapped one securely around his waist. He pushed the door open more; a cool draft from the cave brushed his flushed and naked cheeks. He stood with his back against the door, pushing until it jutted from the wall and something solid stopped it, the Bat.

Their hands met at the edge of the door, joining and twining, wanting to be together.

"I was so proud of you tonight." Batman's voice was warm and deep, the Knight closed his eyes and let the sound fill him. "I wish I could touch you…hold you. More than our masks will allow. I cannot help but wonder…if we were anyone else, if we lived in a perfect world, could we be together?"

"Close your eyes"

"What?"

"Keep them closed. No matter what." Batman's hand tightened around his own and he took a deep breath, he let go and took a step away from the door. He was unmasked in the middle of the Batcave. He took only a step forward and there he was. Batman, trusting and alone in the dark with his eyes closed.

He stepped forward, his hand raising to the others face, caressing it before he leaned in and kissed him.

Batman's hands traveled for the first time over moist, warm flesh, still hot from the shower. They traced over smooth unseen scars that made him ache because of the suffering they meant and at the same time burn- their scarred bodies were perfect for each other.

The Knight took in the sight before him, so venerable. His Bat who lived in darkness with a perpetual grimace truly open and trusting and it was only for him. His eyes were fluttered closed, lips parted in desire, in need. And here the Knight stood with him, bared and trusting, knowing that if Batman looked for even a second the entire world they had built together would crash around them. This was trust, this was desire, this was worth the sacrifice.

Batman shed his gloves and curled his fingers into the Knights hair, finding clean damp curls, a feeling he had yearned to know since he had first laid eyes on him. He groaned, pulling the Knight closer in pure need and green eyes watched as Batman felt him in the darkness. No barriers stood between them now, they were becoming part of each other. When Batman curled his fingers lovingly against him, holding him as precious as a lover he knew that he would do anything to stay here. Let the penguin live, he would never know the gift he had given them.


	8. Chapter 8

Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

"I could give up everything I am for you…everything I _wa_s." And he would. He lost himself in every moment they spent together but he couldn't help but wonder, couldn't help but be tortured. How could this last forever?

The Joker and the Bat were meant to be together but it could never happen- they would have destroyed each other, they could not exist together without dying inside. The Knight could be with Batman…but Batman was so much more. Hard warm flesh pressed against him, muscled and alive, man. Batman was not like him, he had another life, another face, he functioned, and he existed not only in the dimensions of his own mind but here in this world. The man in the Bat. But was there a man in the Knight? Could there be a man the Bat could love? That the man could love? He knew only one thing, if there was a man in him, if he could exist as something…human, as with every part of him it would love every part of the Bat.

They were holding each other in the darkness. He was surrounded in human warmth, arms and chest…he felt safe. He pressed his cheek carefully against his chest, making sure Batman could not feel the scars. He could get surgery, try to fix his mutilated smile, try to be human, he could let someone cut him, torture him all over again and maybe the Bat would be blind to the old scars. Maybe desire would keep him from the truth. Maybe he could tell him, show him, maybe they could be together even like this. Two demi gods- two almost humans- scarred inside and out. Maybe he could show the Bat his face. And maybe it would destroy them both. Maybe they would end up together…locked in a cell in Arkham and the 'what if' would no longer haunt him…because his hell would be realized.

Love... He never thought it would touch his life. Bats sure as hell hadn't, they stumbled through this awkward tumble for the first time together. All he ever knew of love was in stories but the best stories never ended well did they? Love kills. Love maims. Love almost never means happily ever after. How many children were torn between loveless parents? How many husbands beat their wives? How many people let work and drugs mean more than love? How could they be together in a world where even Ken and Barbie were divorced? When love lasted…why couldn't the people? Why did Romeo have to die? Why did Juliet lay in blood? Why did Anthony fall on his sword and Cleopatra tempt the snake that bit her? Could the bat fall in love with the clown and survive?

He leaned in for another blind kiss and as their lips touched he could not help but wonder…what would their poison be?

* * *

Batman was not sure how they got here, how blank darkness became blinding shadows. But he didn't care, not now, not when warm scarred flesh moved willingly beneath his hands. Batman was flat on his back, more man than Bat, he wore only his cowl now, hiding in the layers of the night but so venerable, muscled flesh laid out all for _him_… He could see pale white flesh- beautiful- iridescent, as if it glowed in the twilight, composing his entire world. He could see the outline of soft curls but the color was lost in the trick of light and dark, his face still lingered in the shadows.

The Knight leaned over him, their chests brushing, their mouths closing over one another, trust turning into passion and desire. Batman wanted to moan but no sound escaped him, instead he spoke with his body, his hands traveling over naked chest and hips, resting finally on the small of his back, exploring lower, making the Knight arc his body into him. The image seared into his mind, never had he seen his Knight so open to him, arched and needy, his body moving in lines of grace that sparked desire.

He needed more, they both needed more. Batman did not know how to continue, women he understood but men…this man who meant too much to falter on. But the Knight was moving now, gathering Bruce's hands in his own, twining their fingers and laying them by Bruce's head so that he had to bend over him, so that when the Knight lowered himself onto Bruce he felt the hot exhale of breathe against his face as he the same moment he was enveloped in tight, wet, heat. Bruce writhed shamelessly, needing to thrust, needing to sheath himself fully in his new lover, but he couldn't hurt him…wouldn't hurt him.

But the fingers around his own were twining and untangling with his, and the harsh moist breath on his lips was swallowed in a deep soul wrenching kiss and then the Knight thrust down.

It was so much more than he had ever dreamed, the perfect heat that was almost too pleasurable, the mouth against his, the flat chest that brushed his own, but something was missing. He was thrusting back now, together, working perfect as they always did, he had found the one place he never wanted to leave and then he knew what was missing, as much as they were one person like this, so joined, they were still separated by once necessary layers.

Batman brought the Knights hands to his chest; still needing them close even if he needed the use of his own hands. One hand threaded into those curls, perfect as a porcelain dolls but wild and full of life, the other to his own masked face. Their thrusts faltered but Batman couldn't stop, he knew what they needed, what would bring them irrevocably together. He grasped the cowl and ripped it from himself, so that Bruce lay in place of Batman.

'_No' _He felt the word spoken against his lips but still no sound came. Their bodies were flush, Bruce could not be any deeper in the Knight and when their natural rhythm was broken and their bodies stilled neither surrendered the connection. The Knight broke their kiss, hiding his face in Bruce's neck, his hands alone searching Bruce's face, combing through his hair and finally tracing across his eyes as if he could not help himself- but never looking. Bruce wanted this, needed this. Gently he pulled The Knight to sit up, to look upon him finally and see the man he was.

Curls in a halo of gold tumbled as he shook his head, Bruce did not need to be able to see into the shadows to know the Knights eyes were closed against this. But he they could be so much more if he would only look, the duel lives they led could afford them anything they ever wanted, they could live a normal life and an remarkable one all at once. Bruce reached to touch the Knights cheek but he was denied and his hand fell once more on only curls as he turned his face away..

'_Love' _Bruce felt the word but did not speak it. Instead he caressed the soft hair between his fingers and slowly pulled that unseen face into the light-

"Batman!" Finally sound, his voice calling out to him but the world was fading.

"Bats!" Bruce felt heavy and warm, he opened his eyes to find worried green looking down at him- he was wearing his mask.

"Are you alright?" A warm hand touched his cheek, drawing his attention back to reality. "One minute you were sleeping fine and the next your heart is racing…I was afraid…Bats?"

Batman blinked and forced a cough from his throat, hoping it would dispel his dream, nothing but a dream. His body was still hot with desire but his mind was racing to catch up, to maintain reality and grasp the fading straws of his dream before they vanished.

"I am fine" Batman wrapped an arm around the Knight and pulled him down, waiting until he lay on top of him to turn them both. They lay face to face on the little cot, legs tangling and hands wandering over clean leather and black cloth. He wanted to be able to look at him- to see whatever he was allowed.

"You're flushed." The Knight smiled, his fingertips brushing over the edge of the cowl, the exposed skin of his face coming alive under his ministrations and the rest of him stirring with memories of his dream. "Was it a good dream?"

Batman laughed at the innuendo coloring his friend's voice, just a short deep chuckle but it had the Knight glowing. "Are you trying to give Alfred nightmares?"

"My god!" The Knights hand flew to his face dramatically, so different than the guarded man in his dreams. "Was that a joke? It was! Maybe we should get Alfred down here after all this might be a once in a lifetime thing…" The Knight was smiling; his voice was tinged with joy and playfulness as he sat up as if to go fetch the older man.

"Better not leave." Bruce grabbed the other man and roughly pulled him back down; they were so close he could feel the Knight's laughter. They barely had room between them to fit their hands that entwined naturally against their chests, the other hands having no place to go but around the others waist. It was a silent agreement between them, as long as they did not look at themselves, as long as they did not comment they would not have to analyze their own human actions, have to realize how desperate they were for each other.

"I might make another joke and no one would be here to hear it." Bruce's voice was gruff with dissipating sleep as he settled into the mattress.

"Guess I will just have to stay here then." The Knight moved slightly against him as he too settled in again, his voice going from bubbly to almost intimate with a speed only he could manage.

"How long was I out for?"

"By the time I got dressed you were asleep, it could not have been more than a few hours ago. You should go back to sleep. You are still healing." His hand pressed over the new wounds, over his heart. "And you have some new ones to heal from."

"I have had worse." Batman offered a smirk with the familiar words. "You are hurt too now." He did not stop his hand from running over the leather where he knew a bandage lay just beneath the surface. The Knight smirked back, calm for the moment.

"I have had worse."

"So where does this lead us now?"

The smirk left his face and his expression turned somber, his green eyes almost sad when they met blue.

"Can't we just have this?"

"This?" Batman's arm slinked low on the Knights hips, pulling their lower bodies closer, the action meant only for comfort brought heat rushing through his body. Every time he closed his eyes he could see the Knight above him, beautiful, wanton… "Where we wear masks in the dark and never come out of our cave?"

The Knight moved closer, until their bodies aligned and Batman's entire world became melancholy green eyes and lips he longed to touch. "I don't need anything else." Batman could feel the heat coming off of him, he watched as the Knight wet his lips, now glistening red, moving again, smiling. "Our cave." And then he couldn't see them anymore, only green as his mouth was devoured, freed only when a smile tore their kiss. "Haven't even been on a date and we live together." His voice was low and amused and it felt like his dream all over again, it made him burn.

"I would take you anywhere. If-"

"If we were normal?"

"If we were more than just this, if we could be together as men and not just…icons."

The Knight was leaning in again, tempting him, his lips ghosting over his but felt with ever nerve. "Even as men we could not be normal. If we walked down the street could I hold you? Touch you? Two men like that in the streets of Gotham?"

"You are trying to distract me." The ghosting motion became a firm pressure and Batman felt all the neurons in his brain melt as a tiny almost imperceptible whimper broke from the Knight.

"Trying to scare me into forgetting- _moving in together_- but this is how I want things, you kept close, the only option we have for now. A date, a shot at normalcy we could never have…I could never have. Those lips…" Bruce swallowed as the Knight closed the inch distance between them but he bit the plush red lip, sucking it into his mouth and drawing another searing moan from the man. "and I could almost understand those things, almost believe you meant them, but Gotham…my city shunning us…you wouldn't care at all. And with you by my side neither would I."

"But those things matter." His voice was as broken as his argument, soft but filled with longing for the man pressed against him.

"Not to us. Not enough." Batman shifted so his arm held the Knight's back, a half embrace, he refused to be distracted, his dream haunted him. "I don't know anything about you- about your past." He closed his eyes for a moment and he could see those curls, how his face lingered in the shadows. "I don't even know what you look like."

The Knight shook his head and when their eyes met again they were filled with fire and an ancient sorrow. "The past means nothing. We are the sum of our histories; we are not every individual event we are the people who survived it. Maybe if you knew my past you could put it together and try to approximate who I am but you _know_ who I am!" He was past pleading; he needed understanding, his hand pressed against Batman's heart. 'This is _real_. Why try to know what made me when you can just have me?"

The Knight was shaking with adrenalin, with passion and ferocity and Batman matched him. He cupped the back of the Knights head and crushed them together, feeling all of that passion diverted to their mouths in a desperate clash of teeth and tongue, of wet heat. Batman's heart was pounding and his blood was rushing and he felt more alive than he ever had, he could feel the Knights desperation to dissuade him, he could almost taste the fear in him and it was that sincere fear that finally gave him pause. He wanted to protect the Knight from this, from any pain; he had to remember that the creature in his arms was just as damaged as himself, just as unique. The Knight was pressing against him, grabbing him, clutching him, and their legs slid together and their hips arched. Perfect. _Right_.

"Your right." Batman panted. "I do know you and for now that is enough."

The Knight looked at him as if amazed he would talk now, like this, but it was so- _Batman_. He smiled; his words came out a breathy laugh.

"So- what now?"

Batman's smirk was unrepressed and almost…feral; the Knight couldn't help himself, he wanted more from this beautiful victory, this repressed part of his Bat, he replied with a smirk of his own as he ground against him . Blue eyes widened in surprise.

"Well-" Batman's voice was low and husky, it took him a minute to clear it enough to talk and still every syllable made the Knight grow needier. "We live together and we have already worked together so we might as well make it official…"

The Knights mouth dropped open and stayed there. That he could be here like this and Batman was saying those words…

"Will you be my partner?" Batman swallowed, the words were hot and deep, spoken with a tinge of humor but even as their bodies burned for each other his mind was numb with baited horror.

"Partner?" The Knight finally closed his mouth; he simply had no words to say. "as in.."

"Fighting. In Gotham."

Pressed together in the middle of the night and harder than he had ever been in his life and Batman asks this. He kissed Batman's frozen lips and watch the trepidation melt in his ice blue eyes, he didn't bother to stop his giggle. "Yes. I will. I do."

Bruce's smile was a hundred watts, a smile that he had not felt since the day his parents died.

"We should go train."

"Um no. We should-" The Knight nipped at Batman swollen lips and thrust shallowly against him "do something else…"

Batman's eyes fluttered closed and in a flash they were twisting, Batman's hard body pressing the Knight into the bed. But when his eyes opened again they held that mischievous twinkle that meant only Batman would be happy with what was coming.

"I settled for a 'for now' tonight and you will have to suffer with me. After all…you _know_ me- I am a gentleman and we have not even been on our first date."


	9. Chapter 9

Not Quite the Bat...Part 9  
Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...  
A/N: Sorry it took so long, my computer went to the great circuit city in the sky. O.o

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He could remember all the long sleepless nights, the way he would wake when anyone else entered the room, how even when he slept he could never rest, always haunted. The way his body would freeze in the first moments of waking, ready to spring, to attack. But when gentle hands woke him, moving over his body, memorizing him, he did not feel that familiar adrenalin. The need to be up and aware with a blade in his hand. He was being held in the darkness with only the fluttering of bats above them and he remained warm and pliant, undeniably and bizarrely…safe. There was no ray of morning sunshine to wake him, to help his internal clock, but what did it matter when he had a Batman alarm to wake him. He did not miss the sunshine.

"Hey"

The dark beautiful voice rumbled from the chest he lay on, thick with disuse, The Knight hid his smile in the fabric over Batman's chest. Ever the gentleman, he thought to himself. The Bat knew he was awake but still took the time to coax him into gently waking. He didn't move.

He expected the hands to tread heavier, to hear the voice in his ear again but not how the world suddenly twirled, whirling him onto his back. He opened his eyes as the Bats muscled body settled on top of him, just in time to see his mouth disappear from view as it melded against his own.

The Knight whimpered helplessly, this was no chaste morning kiss, his lips were still swollen from the night before, the taste of Batman still lingered in his mouth and then it was back entirely, warm and wet and hard. Their bodies entwined and there was no time to think, only to feel as the cobwebs of the night cleared out of his mind and made room only for how perfectly they fit together. How he _wanted_.

Batman pulled back, his panting breath torturous and lingering over the Knights wet lips, their bodies achingly entwined, pressed together and desperate.

Green eyes smoldered as he heaved air into his burning lungs."Being a _cock tease_ is _not_. A gentleman thing to do." He meant it to come out a growl but it twisted with a moan.

Lips were against his own again but delving no deeper, the fight was taken out of him when all he could think of was how they fit together like a mutilated puzzle, all the pieces cut it jagged painful shards and Batman had all his missing pieces.

"I will try to do better in the future." Strong arms lay on either side if his head, lifting the bat off of him, sacrificing touch to see each other. He continued to glare playfully but when he looked into his eyes he did not see the reluctant playfulness or even lust he expected, he saw something deep, something fathomless and painful that he had no word for, only a deep resonance within himself.

"I needed to see you…needed to _feel _you before you had time to build your walls against me. I needed-" He could see how difficult it was for Batman to talk but there was no way he could help, he felt exposed, naked, his throat dry. "I needed to feel you before all your masks were back in place. Before you could protect yourself from me."

It was raw, painful, _vulnerable _and now he had a word for it that made his heart thunder painfully. Love.

Batman was in love with him.

This was not a theoretical or even a probable love, it was not a 'what if?', it was absolute, definite, as sure as he had always loved the Bat the Bat loved him. His heart stopped and the acrid air hardened in his lungs, killing him, suffocating him, he needed to vomit. At least that's how he felt.

"Still wearing my mask Batboy." His response was automatic, nonchalant, his mind was racing and he could not find a second to think of the implications of what this meant, not when every touch, every look drove the thoughts from his mind.

Batman gently touched the edge of his mask, running his fingers along the length, dragging across exposed skin.

"You know this mask is not the one I am talking about."

He swallowed thickly. Yes he knew, but did Batman have any idea that his presence drove away the darkness? That with every word he promised a life unknown, a life that could be, strange and human and brilliant. Did have any idea how he needed the thick dark evil? Comforting and familiar, known, understood, tamed and wild. The Knight lay here in Batman's dark light but the Joker was dying inside. Did Batman know what he had done? Could he possibly understand what was at stake?

It was no longer a wondrous game they played. They had fallen down the rabbit's hole, crossed the line between Romeo and Juliet's first love games and found themselves on the precipice of death already and the Joker lay on the prier nearly consumed.

It was in his face, in his heart, in his soul, it did not matter where, just that it was. Because Batman had fallen, his Achilles heel exposed and waiting for the arrows tip. Batman was in love and nothing could break him from that. The cold, unfeeling, withdrawn, barely human Bat had fallen in love and nothing could save him. If he was to break the Bats heart now, to come out of hiding, to show his face, there would be no coming back. Love had infused his every cell and if he broke, if he shattered, they would both die.

Was the Joker happy? Did it matter? He could survive. As the Clown Prince of Crime, as the Ying to Batman's Yang he could never break the bat the way he could now, the way _The Knight_ could break him with the slip of a mask, an ill-fated word. As the Joker he would never have to suffer the pain of losing this.

Turning back, becoming the Joker again was a safe bet, not happy, moments of bliss, flares of joy while they clashed and perpetual undermining melancholy. But the Bat would live and while the Bat lived he too could…exist.

Staying like this…this new take on himself, not less damaged but infinitely happier, in a life the Joker could not conceive of was dangerous. He could have everything, or he could lose it all. Even if they could last, if they could beat the odds, tell the crossed stars that they made their own fate, or as Harvey would put it, their own luck, and stay in _L-,_ stay like this, they would always be haunted. If the Bat ever knew… The images were ingrained forever in his mind, the first time they met as they were now, the terrible rhythm of Batman's heart, the mindless horror in his eyes when he knew Strange was dead… The feel of him in his arms, cold and dying. He knew what fear was. Could he watch as the unforeseen love in his ice blue eyes became hate and harden against him? Could he watch night by night the man he held in his arms now grow more reckless, throwing himself mindlessly, violently into the evil of Gotham? Could he watch the torment tear at him until it became too much and one final ungodly bullet- No. Yes, he knew true fear now and nothing, _nothing_ would ever be worth the pain of going through that again.

The Knight lay in Batman's arms, the full intensity of his being enveloping him and all he could think was_ I am going to save us both. I am going to break your heart. _

_I am going to save you. _

"See, there it is. I can see the change in you." Batman's voice was a sigh but there was still a melancholy smile on his lips as bent he head and caught the Knights frozen lips in a kiss. "I can feel it."

Something stung the back of his eyes, wet and unnatural, he wanted to arc into that touch, to lose himself in Batman's kiss, so numbered now, but if he moved he was afraid he might shatter and all the jagged pieces would cut into them both.

"Come on, time to get up. I want to get some training in before breakfast." Batman stood, letting the subject drop for now, a hand was being held out to him. Numbly he took it and let himself be pulled up.

His chest hurt and there was a pang in his gut like his body was trying to eat itself. He needed time, time away from the Batman's constant presence, his perfectly tailored temptation. He needed to clear his mind, to think, he needed to hit something, he needed to hurt.

When a dozen batarangs were handed to him and Batman pointed to a target he had set up he was thrilled. Mechanical violence, the shining black blades in his hands were almost familiar, almost like having Batman chase him at a caper, it almost felt like he should hold his breath and wait for the first devastating and necessary blow to his face…but life was never that easy.

Each throw was wonderful; he was throwing them wrong so their sharp edges bit into his hands, the sharp pang relief from the aching cancerous throbbing in his chest. Thud. One hit the target, an arm of the paper target. His head began to clear.

Thud. A leg.

Maybe he had read things wrong.

Thud. A shoulder.

Maybe things were not as bad as they seemed.

Thud. Another shoulder.

Maybe Batman could survive if he found out who his new partner really was.

Thud. The neck.

Maybe he could have this and if his gamble lost he could still fall back into what they had had so long ago.

Thud. The heart.

Maybe the Batman wasn't in love with him.

"Stop!" Batman was in front of him, the Batarangs were taken away from him, discarded on the floor in a pile of beautifully glinting metal. It sounded like it wasn't the first time he had been told to stop.

Batman's hands were holding his. There was blood; the sensitive white flesh of his palm was shredded. The burning pain in his hand subsided and everywhere Batman touched him erupted in flames. He was dying.

A clean white bandage was pressed into his hand and held in place. Batman was trying to look at him, to see through him again but he could not let that happen. He was falling apart inside; he needed to end this now before he killed both of them, he needed-

A strong hand lifted his chin and sharp blue eyes seared into him, straight through him, slowly rooting out all of his secrets.

"No!" He didn't recognize the scream, but he felt the sandpaper in his throat. He couldn't look away, could not stop Batman from seeing him, but Batman could not take any more, he broke their gaze. Strong arms wrapped around him, enveloped him. He wanted to melt into him, to be safe here, but he wasn't! He couldn't! But he did not struggle as he was engulfed in Batman's embrace.

"Don't!" He could see only black, he was surrounded by it, hiding them; the voice was a growl in his ear. "Don't hurt yourself anymore."

"W-What?" That shocked him. He wasn't hurting himself, he was just…_existing_.

"I…I'm _sorry_." The last word was foreign and rough. The hold on him became tighter as if Batman was trying to force them together, it felt like he never wanted to let go. "I should not have kissed you like that. I knew you might take it badly and I still-_damn it._"

Batman swore. He would have laughed if he didn't feel like crying.

"Just don't do this anymore!" Batman's growl broke as he crushed the bloodied hand to himself, pressing both of their fists to his bowed head, he could feel Batman's lips on his skin. "Nothing I do should ever make you do this. Not ever."

He let himself be held. He was numb. He _needed_-

"I want to throw some more." Batman's grip tightened momentarily but he was released. Batman walked away and he felt the painful thumbing in his heart speed up. There was no escaping this.

Batman was back, his warm hands stretching more clean white gauze around his shredded hand. Batman didn't speak as he took a pair of thick gauntlets and pulled them into place over the bandage.

He could feel Batman's eyes on him as he gathered the batarangs from the floor but it did not matter. He threw the first one.

Thud. The chest.

It wasn't as good. No matter how he held the blade it would never cut through the Kevlar.

Thud. The groin.

No sharp relief. Just the dull throbbing pain. He could remember playing games with the Bat. _'Hit me!'_

Thud. The arm.

Explosions of pain. Yes. More.

Thud. The head.

He did not hurt himself. Life hurt him, he just enjoyed it.

Thud. The stomach.

He couldn't fool himself now. Batman had said_ sorry_. Wedding rings would have been more discreet.

Thud. The heart. The blade missed the other batarang by a breath.

Batman was the only one who had ever stopped life from hurting him. He was the only one who ever cared about something like cuts on his hand. Batman who could not survive knowing who had once been the clown killer of Gotham, could not survive knowing whose ribs he had broken, whose face he had smashed all those times. _'hit me'_

He was out of batarangs, there was no relief in sight and he felt like throwing up. Or hurting something. Either way.

They stood like that, neither knowing what to do. One not knowing where he stood. They might have stayed like that all day if not for the deliberately loud footfalls approaching them.

"It seems you are adept already." Alfred offered a smile to the Knight as he set down a tray of food. "Batman it seems you will not have to be as protective as you anticipated." He took a step back, clearly indicating that they should both take the proffered food. Neither moved.

"Come now. You both have a full day ahead of you." He turned to Bruce, taking in the situation as quickly as he dismissed it in his own way. They stood apart, their eyes were cold and faces drawn, the target littered with batarangs even had a hint of blood splatter on it. The course of true love never did run smoothly.

"This is the first appearance you will make in Gotham in quite some time you must be ready." He turned to the Knight, Alfred was reminded of the look Bruce so often had as a child, more lost than anything. "And there is more to the cave than just what you have seen. Not to mention all the files you should read before going out patrolling."

"Alfred." Bruce's voice was subdued and tortured, reminiscent of the days before the Knight had come into his life. "There was been a change of plans. I cannot go out today." He took a step closer to the Knight.

The Knight took a breath of relief. The Bat was going out? Yes this is what he needed. Time to plan. Time to clear his head. Time to distance himself from the situation, from the pain the Bat was all too willing to unknowingly inflict.

"No. Go. I will be alright." The Knight regained his composure, an easy smile slipping into place as he snatched an apple off the platter with his still-gloved hand. "Besides Al will be with me."

Bruce frowned as he watched the man who infiltrated his life and stole his reason from him flee to the safety of Alfred. Bruce could see green eyes flicker away from him, a plastic smile on his face, he could see the results of his own ineptitude. He couldn't drag his own eyes from the gloved hands, bleeding within their dark confines. It was like looking into a twisted mirror image, masks and mindless violence, the need to be alone and the pain of every second of knowledge that alone was not how he wanted to live.

The Knight snuck closer to Alfred, hiding in his protective wing. Bruce was almost envious, no one was immune to Alfred's charm, there was something in his dry English humor, something so intrinsically good in Alfred that it made people feel safe. It was almost as if Alfred could not help but be a mother to all of his lost boys. Bruce almost smiled; somehow he thought Alfred would be less than pleased with the comparison.

While he watched the apple became a toy more than breakfast, deft hands threw and caught it over and over, a show of nonchalance Bruce knew was specially crafted for his eyes. He pretended not to watch as the tosses slowed under Alfred gaze and the apple moved as if of its own accord back to the Knights mouth, breakfast once more. Alfred smiled. Yes, if he had to leave and make his reappearance into the world as Bruce Wayne Alfred would hold his life together while he was away.

Time was escaping him, he had to go get dressed for the day ahead, a meeting in less than an hour and he still had to apply the bruises that the car crash Bruce Wayne had suffered would result in. He took a step forward, deliberate, obvious. The Knight frozen, a moment of panic, of indecision, his mouth frozen in place over the apple, then carried on as if nothing had happened.

Bruce didn't want to leave him, not for a second, he didn't want to give him time alone to become the man the Bat had become in his desolate darkness. He wanted to be here, to remind him constantly of another path, the life that could be, especially in this time where no future was certain, but the paths that lay before them lay just around the next turn. He watched the unconscious half step towards Alfred.

Not left alone then. There would always be Alfred.

He wanted that. To be that for the Knight. Be the person who would be in his life without question, constant, as necessary and pertinent as the air they both breathe.

He closed the distance between them, the apple fell to stone floor, forgotten, unnecessary as Bruce held him, enveloped him. The Knight was stone in his arms, muscles turned into steel cables, hardened against him, protecting him, hiding him. Batman would not have that. He captured him in a kiss, devouring him until the ice melted and the stone corroded and the walls of protection fell with a whimper that sounded like a growl.

"Until tonight." And he was gone, Bruce Wayne once more, alone and incomplete, for now.

Alfred waited to see if he would wander off on his own, explore the vast unknown cave, but he didn't. He didn't have the energy, the desire, and maybe he didn't want to see. All he could think of, all he could see, the only one he could hear, was batman. Batman. Batman. Broken. Dead. In love. Fuck.

He found himself led to the huge computer, scanning through old files, criminals, crimes, cops, Gotham itself. He didn't read them, just watched as the colors flashed by, his fingers ticked against the keys again and again, repetitive, constant, good.

The tray of breakfast food appeared beside him and then disappeared untouched. The only indicator that the world was going on without him. That somewhere Batman was going on without him. Functioning. Alive. And if only he left now Batman could stay that way.

But he couldn't very well leave without a word. Batman would follow him and for a moment the thought made his feel…warm…something, before he crushed it, shredded it and banned it from the contents of his dark mind. If Batman stayed with him he would find out his secrets and he would die and The Knight…The Joker…would be all alone. Not separated, not playing cops and robbers in their city playground, forever orphaned, forsaken, and alone.

Lunch came and it too left by silent hands.

Batman had to understand…and he had to understand only what he wanted him to. He could not very well say that it was over. 'It's not you it's me'. For the first time in years he envied the pawns he mocked on the streets. What did they know about suffering or hardship? 'I can't break up with my boyfriend!' How do you break up with The Batman?!

Hurt him.

Fight him. Rip out his heart, show it to him and cast it away. Hurt him to save him. 'you're a freak, your broken, warped, demented' true. But also true about everyone they knew, he needed more. 'you are not what I need. You are not what I want.' Not even the Bat could argue with feelings, what did either of them understand about those anyway? 'I don't love you.'

'I _can't_ love you'

"I don't love you."

He could do this. He could save them both. But the computer screen disappeared, and a rose filled his vision, red and black and velvet. He could smell the blossom; he wanted to touch it, the silk petals, the deceiving thorns. His chair spun around and there he was, in a dark tuxedo with raven hair, blue eyes blazing from his short masquerade mask.

'I can't…'

'I shouldn't…'

'I don't-…fuck'


	10. Chapter 10

Not Quite the Bat...Part 10  
Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

He would crush it. This fragile human thing between them, the heart he held in his hands. Thumping. Beating. Healthy and alive. He could feel the blood rushing, pumping life. Feel the wet pulse beneath his cold fingertips, the strong yet painfully fragile ventricles. The collapsible hollow spaces of vulnerability within the human heart. A life in the palm of his hand. So familiar...to crush it, to break it, to destroy without thought or reason, to destroy out of pure desire and yet…

How many lives had he crushed? How many times had he felt delicate pulsing life of a throat- like a tiny bird in his hand- so brittle, so fragile, a life that could be crushed with no more thought than a breath? How many times had he wanted that, to end a life just because he could, just so he could _feel_ it? How many times had he felt life and destroyed it with want? With desire? With need?

Now he held this thing, freely given, a life, a reality, strong and fragile, impenetrable yet mortal, and his instinct was not to crush, not to feel shattered bones and spilled blood. He _wanted_ it.

But it was not his to keep

It had a name on it that was not his own, - and yet it _was _his own. A familiar name, a name with no past, with no future. _The Knight_. No future, because it ended tonight.

With a cruel squeeze of his hand the delicate bird shatters, the heart collapses.

It ends tonight.

He was beautiful. Undeniably beautiful. And for the moment, one of their last, as the ticking time bomb in his mind grew closer to the inevitable end, he was all his.

"For you." This was not the Batman's voice, this smooth warm intensity that washed over him, but the familiar growl hid just beneath it, only a breath away. Another layer, another voice to haunt him when it was gone.

The flower loomed in front of him, beautiful and dark as its owner. The red rose, held out to him with bare hands, unfamiliar white against twisted green thorns, too clean, too normal. Too human. Real. There was no thought as he took the flower, just a mindless action. Like a child reunited with a beloved toy; a girl picking up the bouquet on Valentines Day and knowing in that first moment of rapture that she was not alone. And so he stared down at it, traced the petals with his eyes, watched how red bled into black, like blood seeping into the shadows. He focused on fragile meaningless petals instead of watching those hands, instead of following them up and finding the eyes that bore into him, eyes that searched for him in the darkness.

"Don't laugh." Too sweet, deep and romantic, a caress more than a voice. It had to be fake; no one could sound like this and mean it. Batman had just learned to acknowledge the fact that he cared if The Knight lived or died… but this voice was out of Casablanca and this rose stolen from a fairytale, they had no place in this dark and dreary cave. These things of romance and beauty and happiness had no place in their story. The story of the Bat and the clown. Or was it the story of the Bat and his Knight?

Batman was just making it easier for him. Now he would be able to look him in the eye and he would see the false note in this new unseen persona, this creature of humanity and romance. It would mean nothing to him to smash him, to hurt him, to destroy this cheep veneer of humanity to escape the Bat that hid below.

He wrenched his eyes from the rose, following the straight lines of his arms clad in a dark suit, raking over the exposed skin of his open shirt, over full red lips…and into familiar blue eyes that held nothing but brutal, terrible, honesty. Not false, not a sweet trick after all. Not the voice. Not the Rose. Not a new layer of deception, not a new layer to his mask. A layer removed, a new side shown. Human. Vulnerable. Real. _Terrible_.

The iron of his conviction, the only way to save them both, to save Gotham, to save this strange terrible world had cracked. A spider web of doubt was spreading; fueled by desire, by horror, by that feeling he never wanted and never asked for! The feeling that would destroy Batman and now threatened to consume him in its unfeeling flames. Fueled by damnable, awful, contemptuous, …_love_.

"It reminded me of you." A smile grew, small and real that reached his whole face, so exposed beneath this flimsy party mask. The final macabre mask separating them. He yearned to run his hands over it, to kiss every new inch of skin and forget what had to be done. So close to the man beneath, Batman was tempting him, a slip of the hand- _the right choice of words_- choosing to trust, choosing to become this and it could all be his. This tremulous existence that he _wanted_.

Already Batman was toeing the line of lunacy, baring so much of his face to him, it was designed to tempt him, to make him want to see, make him want to know the other side of the Bat. Designed to show trust that Batman never bestowed on anyone. But it did not fuel the already painful desire to know him or to be with him. It set his fear of knowing alight. Did he really want to see? Want to know? Didn't Batman know what was on the line? Why couldn't he accept that they could only have this, that they could never be together in the revealing light of day? Even as he wondered and the fear inside him grew he knew that if he felt something almost like fear, if he still wondered, then there was part of him left that hoped, part of him that was not resolved to his Grimm Fairy Tale ending.

His heart was pounding, the rush of blood pounded through his ears, drowning out the world. His heart leaped into his throat, choking him, suffocating him until the world faded at the edges. The black was closing in on him, beautiful and pure, an escape he yearned for, and all that remained were fathomless, terrible blue eyes. Eyes that once looked at him with disdain now saw him with something more powerful, more terrible then hatred. His body was on fire, and his mind in agony. Rust grew on his cracking resolve, spreading like a disease with every word. His ending was being taken from him, the reality he had forced himself to believe, the world in which this was nothing, in which _love_ was nothing, intangible, forgettable. The world where he could pretend that he had never wanted the Batman was washing away. His way out, his last chance at life, at surviving this. Gone.

He sat perfectly still, afraid to move, mind too far gone, body gone, lost in their twisted dance through the fire. His mind was racing with a million thoughts but all he could see was a blur of color, no clarity remained in his muddled world. Each second was a lifetime of indecision. Good and bad, to leave or to stay. Divided. Was this what it was like to be Harvey?

He was the Joker! The Knight! He lived as he wanted, denied nothing, happy, melancholy, it was all his, if only he should reach out and take it. What was life to him? Of course he would gamble, throw his life away on million-to-one odds, in the end it did not matter! Survive or die, the Bat was his. Always. Forever.

But he knew terrible truths now that as just The Joker he could never have imagined. He knew pain that was not in the body, that was not life giving and gorgeous, so different from his knives and Batman's fists. He knew pain that was a cancer on his heart, on the soul that he should not possess. Of course he could gamble his life but it was not his life on the line! It was the broken soul he thought he did not have. It was watching the Batman splinter and shatter; It was watching the last breath of death drag out for weeks, for months. It was watching the one thing that meant more to him than his own life, the only thing that had ever come to matter be destroyed by his own hand. He would not, could not, suffer that.

The bouncing back and forth in his mind stopped, stuck finally as his heart hit a familiar anguishing pitch. Why could he not be lucky and have a heart attack and die in this moment and never have to decide? To not have to go through with the only plot in all of his life that he did not want. He had already decided. It was the only choice for him…no. There was no other choice! If he wanted to survive, not live but _survive_, if he wanted the Batman to go on, if he wanted to see the Batman in a year, in two, alive and broken there was no choice!

"I wanted to give it to you. A memento of our first real date." There was a pink flush painting the exposed skin of Batman's cheeks, almost innocent, perhaps love making him innocent, erasing for now the terror that he could inflict on the criminals of Gotham, compounding the havoc he wreaked now unwittingly. The flush was drawing his eyes back to vivid blue that had never strayed. He wanted to touch that skin so much more now that he could not. Offered the world and unable to even touch it.

A delicate smile grew under the blush, horrifyingly honest. Making his own heart _throb_.

"If you will have me…"

No.

He could not bear it any longer; his eyes traced the strong angles of his nearly bared face, committing each line, each shade, to memory. He looked past the lips that were once his, past the unnaturally flushed cheeks and looked into his eyes knowing he had to do it, knowing that he had to keep his resolve…and it was all over. All semblance of rational thought ceased. He was being consumed, devoured. It was not the man, the stranger, this Casanova with the soft voice and elegant flower that stared back at him, deep down, it would only ever be the Bat.

A hand was held out to him and he took it, mindless, wanting, enraged that his capacities were being taken from him, that his control, his mind, his chaos, where being taken from him because all he could think of was this. He let the hand pull him up, tugged off balance with his mind dizzy and whirling, into the circle of Batman's arms, pressed between the chair and muscled chest. Trapped. Willingly trapped and unable to break free.

He had to. There was no choice. But he did not _want_ to.

"Will you join me tonight?" His Batman.

Batman did not wait for an answer, he pulled him closer, enveloping him, the cold of the cave had saturated his body as he sat unnourished and still, Batman's warm arms and the perfect muscled chest he longed to touch felt like life.

He could not live without this, not now that he knew a life so …strange. But as Batman touched his lips to his, he knew this was their last kiss. Maybe living was never part of the plan.

As Batman kissed him in gentle greeting, in welcome with the whole of their imagined future spread out before them The Joker stood on his tip toes to meet him, his hand carding through raven hair, soft and lush that he would never again feel. He memorized the way their hearts pounded in rhythm, the feel of strong arms coming around him, holding the small of his back like they never wanted to let go, violent and passionate as his fists. The body that he would only ever feel again in the grips of violence, in the tumble of a brutal fight, for life and death, now holding him close, as if they were a single person, as if nothing else mattered but this. He stole the kiss, turning Batman's gentle touch into a devouring lock that had Batman's chest heaving under his buttoned shirt, his pristine jacket. They were smoldering, The Knight running an open hand down Batman's side, tracing the contours of his body one last time, clutching his hip and knowing that time was running out. His lungs burned, and Batman's body was thumbing against him. A hello and a goodbye.

A breath burst from him, forcing them apart and hands as cold and lithe as his own gripped his heart. Their breaths came in violent pants, and even now Batman held him close, not understanding perhaps but wanting to. Their foreheads touched, heaving chests brushing and green tormented eyes looked purposefully down, away from what had to abandon, to break.

This changed nothing. A flower, a rose. Desire. Effort. Life. Love. None of it mattered. Feelings that he had never felt before, emotions he saw reflected in well loved eyes that had once held only hatred and the burn of repressed genius warring with insanity…amounted to nothing.

The way he held him in the dark.

The way he was always warm when his own body was frozen.

The way he kissed him like was something priceless, like he was worth more than all the riches, all the villains and good and evil in the world.

The way that for once he did not feel insane.

He was not alone.

None of it mattered.

"Don't do this." It was Batman's broken voice infusing that romantic Casanovas. More natural, more desperate. Brilliant. Dark. Batman could feel it in their kiss. He felt the abandon, the darkness that now saturated him even when he spoke nothing of it. Like that morning when Batman had kissed him, maybe he would always see through him then, at his most venerable, when he could not hide. When he did not want hide. Maybe it was good that they never kissed as Batman and the Joker, every plot he ever had would be foiled before it began.

Arms held him tighter and he let them, he let his own head fall to Batmans clothed shoulder, let his face bury itself into his warm neck, the pulse beating under his frozen lips, a lingering goodbye. He could not look up, this voice, his voice, would haunt him in his dreams, in his waking moments, but if he looked into those eyes they would never leave him alone. They would stare at him from every face, paint his world.

"Give me time. Give me tonight." Rational, calm as always in appearance, the almost waiver in his voice was gone but Batman could not fool him. The skin beneath his lips was flushed, heating even now, his fragile pulse raced. "I know I scared you."

"Ha." His protest was short but he could feel the tremble in him as the hot breath brushed against his skin.

"You know that is not what I meant!" And then all the calm attitude, the last shreds of the man beneath the cowl broke and only his brilliant Bat remained. Entwining loving hands became familiar vice grips on his arms, pulling him back. Almost fists.

Yes. He could almost laugh. The slow progression from love to hated, from their final goodbye to the violence they would forever after have.

A gloveless hand trapped his face, forced it up, he expected to see the cold repressed darkness, a mask to hide the pain even from himself shielding those eyes. But he was wrong. It was fire.

"You are afraid I will see something more. Something beyond this. Something you cannot show me." The vice grips became hands, needy and searching, traveling, grasping until they held his face, until the thumbs brushed over his skin, and every sense was trained to the man in front of him. Until nothing existed but Batman. "But I will let you keep your secrets." He was being pulled closer, the words that started loud and echoing off the sides of the cave were becoming a whisper he strained to hear. "It is not your past I want…" Batman caught him in a wet desperate kiss that was gone before he could respond. _"All I want is you."_

"Why?"

Fuck. Why did he have to make this so difficult? Why did he have to make it hurt? Why could it not just go according to plan? Why couldn't he just hurt him? Why did Batman have to figure it out on his own, why did he promise things that could never happen?

"You do not even know me! I don't know you! How can you want this? How can you want me?" He growled and pulled free of his embrace, done being weak, done needing this, done trying to choose. It needed to end. It needed to stop now. The words he spat were lies, he knew the answers to them all, his pathetic excuse for a soul screamed the answers in his ears but he blocked it out. He needed to end this. He needed to save the Batman just once more.

"No-" Batman took a step forward and he took a step back, forcing his legs to dig into the chair behind him painfully, he pushed back harder, concentrating on the physical pain rather than the screaming in his mind. He glared down the man in front of him, almost the Bat, the Bat at his most human. Mortal clothes, mortal body, but those eyes…

"I KILLED. You met me because I killed for you! Brutally! Without mercy I killed! How can you say you want to be with me when I am only here because you thought I would go kill again for you!?" He was in a rage, but it was not good enough, he could still see the defiance, the disbelief. But he didn't want this to continue! He did not want to hurt anymore!

Batman refused to back down. "You stopped all that. That is not why you are here. It never was and you know it as well as I do. I _want_ you here and you _want_ to be here. I could have imprisoned you and been done with it, you could have escaped a million times over but here we are." His logic calmed him. He was stepping forward and there was no place left to retreat to.

Bastard. "You think you want me here but you still do not know me! You admit yourself there is something I am hiding from you! And how do you know I want to be here? How do you know I will not hate who you are? Why do you think I will love the man beneath the Bat!?"

"Because…you complete me." All the pain vanished from his legs, from his heart, he felt numb. All the time, all the years, the dreams, the heartbeats, the plans, spent yearning, spent saying those very words, dreaming of a day that it might be understood, he never dreamed they may be said back to him…

And he was beautiful.

The hands were back, holding him, commanding him to pay attention, to see only this, only him and the words flowed over him.

"You are the only one who has not fallen for the man I pretend to be, from the first moment you knew who I was, the dangerous vigilante, the crusader, The Batman. You saw _me_ and still you came." Their chests brushed, their breaths melded and Batman was getting closer still, his words were a breath on The Knights lips. "You are the one that reminded me that I was human beneath the mask." A whisper that was falling into a kiss. No.

He would know.

He would find out.

He could never know.

He could not be allowed to die.

Familiar as breath, his grasping hand made a fist and Batman's naked cheek crushed against his hand, his body falling to the floor. The only time the joker had ever caught him off guard.

His mask was askew; tufts of Raven hair fell into his face as he fixed it, blood falling unchecked from his split lip as he looked up from his place on the ground. Emotionless. His Batman.

Relentless agony coursed through him, relief and dread mixed and built within him, set finally on the course he must finish, past the point of no return he hammered on. Heartless.

"You do not complete _me_." _No_. "You are not enough for me." _You are everything_. "You will never see me and you will never be want I need!"

Batman was standing now. Blood dripped onto his white collar, but he was waiting, giving away nothing, taking everything in. Ever the detective. Cold and heartless. God what had he done?

"I do not believe you."His voice was neither the man nor the bat; it held nothing, no inflection, no emotion. Simple. Easy. Nothing more and nothing less than stating a fact. But it was this look that he dreaded from the beginning, how the fire seemed to die, how fathomless eyes had become shallow and colder than he had ever seen them in all the years of death and murder. The look that would haunt him all of his days.

"How arrogant can you be Bats? Look at yourself. Is it so hard to believe? I am leaving. I am out." He fought so hard to keep his voice even, to keep the sound if his own torment from reverberating through his voice. Could he hear the tearing? Could he hear something cold and black break deep within him? His face was mask; perfect as the Bats, his voice perhaps just a little too cold.

"I do not want you."

Batman shook his head, how fragile he looked, how human. His hair was mused; the thin mask was a charade of protection, an invitation and a constant reminder of a refusal.

"You are lying."

He had nothing left to say. Words had left him and he had no more to give, nothing left of himself to break. He turned and began to walk away.

"Stop!" A hand closed over his shoulder, spinning him almost violently. "Tell me. Tell me you don't love me!" Batman was growling, watching him walk away had snapped something within him, all the calm was gone and all that was left was so …wrong.

He didn't think. He just needed to get away. And so he did what was natural. He punched him again.

Batman was ready for him. The world turned before his fist hit flesh, he lay on the cold stone of the cave floor, his head smashing painfully off the stone with a crack. Batman landed on top of him, his arms pinning him to the ground. He blazed; the zombie he had created was gone, reborn. He needed to be broken once more. To hear it finally.

"Tell me you don't love me!" Close enough to kiss, but that time was gone.

Just once more. Hurt him to save him.

He looked into Batman's eyes, unflinching, unforgiving.

"I do not love you."

He wanted to scream. To thrash out. To hide. To slice. To burn.

Batman was kissing him. He had forced their mouths together in violence and passion, their bodies pressed tight on the ground. He was being consumed, revenged, he tasted like blood and he could not stop himself. He kissed him back, just as violently, just as desperately. He held nothing back, ignoring all the wounds, all the baggage and horror that lay between them.

"Bastard!" He bit out with a gasp when it was over. But Batman only smiled down at him.

"You _l_-"

"Don't say it!"

"You _lied._"


	11. Chapter 11

Not Quite the Bat...Part 11  
Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...  
A/N:Sorry about the long absence! Life has well and truly kicked my butt. But in the eternal words of the Joker "Here we ...Go!"

'You lied'

He lied. Every beautiful word of it, and now the truth hovered over their necks like a guillotine, sharp and decorated in blood, the executioner had twitch in his hands. Disaster is on the horizon and Batman speeds towards it. What else could you expect of them but to hurtle themselves faster and faster to the end of their days?

Batman is heavy on top of him, alive, muscles straining against him, holding him in place, demanding another kiss, stealing the truth from him. Tasting it on his lips like the sickening sweetness of poison. Of love on his lips.

The world slows on its axis, the moment becomes eternal. Time slows the moment that hope dies, the moment you look into the hollow eyes of death and think, fine, I'll go but you have to catch me first. The cold wheeze of death is on his neck, skeletal fingers reach through his chest to crush the heart he never would have thought existed, squeezing the blood from it, crushing his life, turning it into a bloody pulp in deaths cold withered hand. All for him, all because of him, because he refused to believe, because he would not accept this false ending. His beautiful fairytale ending. Because the Bat and the Clown would never stop until they were both dead- no matter who they were.

He didn't mean to, he did not want to, but he looked into the vibrant eyes that bore into him. Sapphire eyes that burned, that smiled, he wanted to feel hate, to burn, to hurt him for doing this to them, for killing them both. But time had slowed. He could see the blood smeared on his split lips, the precious crimson ruby that threatened to break and fall against his own tainted lips, the mussed raven hair that looked so terribly human, dark and wondrous, so alien on the inhuman Bat that a driving need was born in his chest to touch it, to grab it. His eyes. The eyes that made him feel like he was not alone, the ones that made him feel as if he was understood and that none of it mattered. In Batman's eyes he saw his sanity, his soul. Deaths hand was creping closer, reaching out for his Bat..and he was relieved. He was happy.

Another day. Another week. A month maybe. His. All his until the Bat found out what he was, who he had killed, what he had done. A short life left to him where the Bat was his. Finally his.

No more sacrifice.

No more trying to be noble.

No half existence, no life after the bat, no life after the Knight.

No pretending.

There would be burning, desire, passion, sanity, terror. He would hold onto each second, each moment of this doomed life until it broke in his hands, shattering them both. And he would die. They both would.

'You complete me.'

No coming back from this. No escape plan. Not from the words he had waited his whole life to hear. His perfect counterbalance. The other half of himself, the only other person who really existed in this world infected with the mindlessness of zombies. He finally understood.

His forever. In life and soon in death.

The mask seems so small now, so fragile. All the guns and bombs and chemicals he had used over the years and the final weapon, the one that would stop the unending battle between the raw face of man and the only hope for good in a worthless city is a miniscule party mask. A thin layer of papier-mâché was the only thing left separating them from death.

He turned away from him, just a moment, a moment before their speed towards the end, before he accepted their fate at long last. His head peeled from the stone floor, the small puddle of crimson beneath his head wet and sticky, already thick in the cold of the cave.

He could smell it before he could see it. Over the tang of blood, mixing in the air hung his own perfume of choice, the smell of roses and blood. Black and red petals lay scattered and torn on the unfeeling stone. Blood seeping into the shadows. The rose lay broken and dead, its fragile beauty still crisp, a snapshot of life and death, neither one nor the other.

Their date.

He had ruined their first date. Their only date.

Past the rose, into the back of the cave where the sounds of rushing water in the impenetrable darkness filled the air…a candle flickered.

Already burning low the flames licked at the darkness, sending flickers of light over the table. Silver and plates laid out and untouched, dished of covered food, cold and abandoned.

For him.

"I lied."

The world spun, and before he could take a breath, before he could think, Batman's lips were on his. Hungry. Funny, how they tasted bittersweet. Like blood and poison.

His arms were released, given back to him and it took only moments to reclaim what was rightfully his. He tore the gauntlets from his hands, shredding the gauze that held his palms together and pressing his fragile flesh against him, staining his suit with blood, making it his own. He scrambled for flesh, trying to transverse clothing that was nothing but mortal and common, while a legend of Gotham consumed him.

His mouth opened to him, hot and wet, tongues met and clashed, battling for dominance, for something as his bared hands pressed finally against uncovered flesh. The salt of his skin burned against him, becoming part of him, real, beautiful.

Batman's hands were moving, not innocent but focused, needing and not receiving enough, never enough, not like this. Needing to consume, they brushed across his face, tracing the contours of his cheeks, making his heart race. So close. Too close to scars that would mean everything if the putty was to fail. They cradled his head.

He didn't scream, didn't cry out, but there was light, so much light that for a moment Batman disappeared. No. Not now. Not when they were finally together! But he was back, emerging from the light and darkness, still heavy, still real against him. But the Bat had stopped, bruised and bloodied lips that glistened in the light with blood and saliva panted for breath, pouted, thin with worry.

He reached up for him, tried to raise his head to meet those lips but the hands that had caressed a moment ago were vices. He struggled again. He would not be denied this, never again, not as long as they both lived! But it was getting a little hard to think. His mind and heart raced, catching up with the world, with the feelings that washed over him, harsh and unrelenting.

Batman, the man…Batsy, cooed at him, mindless nonsense as his eyes bore into him. It was strange, unwarranted, but as he struggled again the Bats lips covered his own, quick, not delving into him, not the devouring hunger that lay festering beneath the surface, boiling, amplifying with every second, not with the fire from their twin souls. Cautious, something warm that felt safe, home.

"You are hurt."

"No." Not now! Now is not the time to play these games! He wanted…he needed…

"Yes." Batman was holding his head, his neck, soothing and warm, his body still thrummed for more but trapped beneath him, dissected by those eyes, held close, he felt something odd, he felt…protected. Another facet of strange emotion. Something irrational, something he should not tolerate. But it was his. And the mask between them seemed more stable, less likely to disintegrate under their fire. This protectiveness, this injury, bought them time.

"When I threw you down…" Guilt. It was all over his exposed face. As foreign as love, as possession and desire.

"This how you treat everyone who tries to break up with you?" He groaned, letting his hips grind upward into the Bat but the motion, as much of an attempt at humor as it was to ease the desire that enflamed him, was stopped with a firm hand and a scathing look. At least it was better than guilt.

"Don't move. I could have really hurt-" The words died in the Bats throat as a bloodied hand made its way to his face, tracing the already purpled cheek.

"I am a big boy." A wink and a leer had almost all the worry gone from the bats face, was that …a grin? He really was more human like this, less his impenetrable Dark Knight..more…Batsy. "If I have a concussion then you have a cracked cheek bone. We will live." For now.

The thin set of his lips did not change as he rolled off of him. Immediately he missed the warmth, the feel of him. More substantial than any body he had ever felt, curving perfectly to his own, not the fragile frame of a woman or the awkward body of a male, he had the feel of a dark god, a legend. And he was all his.

A hand was held out to him, clean and perfect, manicured nails, no ring, strong, but only for a second, a change of plans, of thoughts. He was being picked up. Those hands closing around his shoulders, lifting him to his feet and dragging him into waiting arms.

"Ok." Soft and dark in his ear. The very voice that echoed in his mind still.

'You complete me'.

"Good." His own voice was gravel and heat, raw. He let himself be surrounded, engulfed by dark arms and warmth that seeped into his body.

"But I am still going to watch over you." The words were whispered into his ear, a promise and a warning.

Another kiss, gentle and delicate as the last, only hinting at more, stole his breath. He was pinned beneath his gaze as the Bat spoke, not his normal confident voice, but almost hesitant. Not afraid…never that, but…unsure.

"This is not exactly how I wanted tonight to go." A smile. Real and self-depreciating. "I wanted it to be perfect."

"Doesn't matter." The words came from nowhere, voiced without knowledge. A basic need, driven to comfort, not bad but odd, unwanted. Before something foolish could be pulled out of him he leaned in, to distract him, to have him. His hands found their way to the back of the Bats neck, running through silk strands, tugging at them, stealing away his concentration. His.

"It does. It matters because no one has ever mattered to me like you do."

He couldn't swallow; blood filled his mouth, the wound small and new, blood still spilling out around the teeth that pressed into delicate flesh. His pounding heart pushed the blood out, terrorizing him, filling his ears with the sound. But the words could not be blocked out. Soft and beautiful, promises, anecdotes of caring. Acts, displays of need, of…love and possession he understood, he could handle. But soft words spoken in the dark, these tiny insignificant things made bile rise in his throat.

"For what it is worth, for what is left, will you join me tonight?"

The Batman, the vigilante who broke legs and crippled villains, who stopped murders and rapes and saw the worst the human race had to offer, man at its most basic, should not be able to spew kind words. He should not be able to ruin their darkness with words that meant too much. Words that would never leave him alone. Words that would chase him into the darkest recesses of his own mind and never let go.

"Yes."

Words which already had their thorns buried deep in his skin.

He was led deeper into the cave, to the table. He could see now the preparation, the time taken, the empty flower vase that stood in its center, it was beautiful.

The water rushed through the stone, its powerful surge only a soft background noise, mixing now with music that poured around them, drifting through the moonlight that slipped in through some far off place. The Bat took a step back, releasing him completely only to hold out a hand in offering.

A laugh escaped him as his bloodied hand was taken without comment and a smile slipped over the Bats features, a small bow like a prince making him feel like he had dropped into the wrong story. An arm wrapped around his back, holding him tight, the other entwined with his own hand, pressed between their chests. They were dancing.

"Thank you."

So maybe the world was spinning more than it should, but he had been worse, and he could not step away from the Bat. It felt like floating, like flying.

"For trying to leave? For punching you in the face?" Bitter humor was the only thing he could think of, the only thing with actual words and meaning when the rest of his mind had fallen into a slump of grunts and feeling and monosyllabic phrases. Yes. Good. Dizzy.

A scoff that was almost a laugh twisted the Bats lips from their perpetual pout. He was perfect, he swept across the floor like gravity and awkwardness could not touch him. He was grace and perfection, lifting him, pulling him around the room. Their dance never slowed nor waivered as he brought their foreheads together, eyelashes brushing when they pressed too close.

"For staying." A kiss to distract him brushed against him in a dizzying whirl, satisfying nothing, making him want to follow those lips.

"I have not been easy on you. I brought you into a world of my own making, forcing you to try to make sense of the life you have and my reality all in an unfair world." He took a deep breath and the Joker realized something. Something obvious and frightening and wonderful.

The Batman was talking.

More than he had heard in years of fighting, of spying and listening the Batman was talking, showing emotion, weakness. There was no innate change wrought in his character, no sudden desire to speak and share. Now that he looked, now that he could see…every word was anguish. Every word tore a chunk from his heart and put it on display.

Batman, tall dark scary and silent was tearing himself up inside because to him, he…The Knight…was worth it.

"You do not see the potential that I do. You think I will see something in you, find something to hate,…but I am too invested in you. I could not turn from you now." Dark and rich, his Casanovas voice rang with innocents but the Bat lay beneath, scrambling, hurting. His eyes betrayed him, toling stories of the truth of the words and the anguish of speaking them allowed. Amazing. All the things those eyes had seen and still such life remained within them, blazing blue. Life that would fade…life that he would bleed from them.

"You can. You will." No, no you will die trying, it will break you. How did the Bat expect him to carry on a conversation when the world would not stop spinning? When he had to close his eyes to focus only on the solid body pressed close to him?

"Is there anything you could learn about me that would turn you against me? Anything left in the world?" It was a dare as much as it was a question. How far did his love go? How far could he be stretched? There was a split second of indecision, to lie? But lies had gotten nowhere, would get him nowhere when they knew each other too well. Too well and not at all. But to see those eyes die…. To kiss cold lips…

"No."

Their dance slowed, his body was heavy, tired and slumping while the world seemed to dance, to twirl without any help from them. The arm that had guided him now held him, holding him to his chest, their joined hands had lifted until he was holding onto the Bats shoulders and his arms finally wrapped around his neck, holding on. Half walking half being held.

"But it is different for me." He could not keep his eyes open as he spoke, better to ignore the heavy feeling of his eyelids, the way his own voice was slowing and his cheek rested on Batman's shoulder. "You live in a world of black and white. Good and evil. There is nothing you could do to destroy this, nothing I could hate you for." To tired, too dizzy to think, to use his brilliant deranged mind, but he could let the words come, give his final warning. "But you have morals Bats, you are good whether you like it or not. You are good in a way I have never been. That has never mattered to me. I am too dark for the Dark Knight."

It did not work. The Bats arms tightened around him, lifting him, holding him, his feet resting softly on Batman's as they moved in a slow dance. He chose not to believe.

"I do not care. I do not care about what you were. We are not our past. As long as you have been with me you have fought with me. That is all that matters. "

They had fought together. The Bat and his Knight. Just days ago seemed a lifetime away now. Partners. Living with the Batman, fighting for the other team. Had he really agreed to give up his old life?

A life that had only meant anything because the Batman was there. Batman who was his only anchor in a whirling world.

Yes, for now he could be the Batman's partner. He could live like this. Side by side with him, fighting for the wrong team because it did not make a difference. Batman was all his, without ploys, without cold solitary months in Arkham dreaming of the day they could be together. But then he would see death grip the Bat. He would watch the spiral down and know as his body cooled that there was nothing left in the universe for him. That some crucial part of himself had died.

Would it feel like this? Like his mind was half gone, like a gauze lay between him and the world? Like the ground would never stop moving? Like there was no place for him, no safety. No home?

Unless.

He would do anything to avoid that pain. That separation. What if he was not the one that felt it? What would the Bat do if he died? Would he live to avenge him? Become cold and hard, even darker than the Bat he had come to love the moment he stepped foot in Gotham. Would he live?

Joker certainly would not have to see him die. There were fates crueler than death. After all what did the dead care? They did not feel their own loss. They were not left to mourn and cry and remember. They left only a rotting corpse, an empty shell.

Selflessness had not worked. The time had come to be finally himself, selfish once more. He would not watch his Bat, his partner, die before his eyes. He would let himself die, to sleep in darkness, to find oblivion or nothing; he would die and hide his identity from the Bat. If it was too late, if Batman knew, if he would find out just who his partner was, his own death would give Batsy a chance. The Bat could learn to hate him, to live off that anger, to never know the feeling of 'what if'. To be tempted by the living half of himself that resided in the body of another locked behind terrible scars and he bars of Arkham.

So warm. He buried his eyes in the Bats exposed neck, warm flesh pressed against him, subdued the rising nausea, made the churning sea in his mind settle. Yes. If he could die he could be happy, he could live this happy life and never give it up, never suffer less. Happiness until the end. Until the end of the Joker, the end of the Knight.

"You are all that matters…" The Bat was speaking gain as if the words tore at him; each word grew in anguish and sincerity. He wanted to see him, to watch the eyes that had looked on him in disdain for so many years, to see the change in them. But the world swirled again when he tried to move and his eyelids sunk closed, so heavy not even the Bat could temp them open.

They were moving now. Sitting, lying down somewhere soft. Engulfed in dark warmth, surrounded in arms and legs and Bat. They were twisted together now, no need for those hands to hold him up anymore they carefully traced his skull, measuring, protecting. He did not dare open his eyes but a kiss was pressed to his face as sleep washed over him, tugged him under. He struggled until he was wrapped in the Bat, his heartbeat his lullaby. Yes. This would be a good death.

The world was nothing but warmth and darkness, his mind half entranced in a dream the words came to him like the devils whisper…or maybe an angels in his ear.

"I have fallen in love with you."


	12. Chapter 12

Not Quite the Bat...Part 12  
Title: Not Quite the Bat...  
Disclaimer: If I owned them they would have less clothing while together  
Rating: PG13-R  
Warnings: Gore, language  
Characters/Pairings: Batman/Joker  
Summary: A last stand by a band of Gotham's worst nearly kill The Batman and The Joker is less than pleased. No one stands between Joker and his Bat and he aims to make sure it never happens again...

A coin glimmers as it flies through the air. Heads. "Why are we here Penguin?"

"If this is another scheme…" a voice cold and inhuman. Like Ice.

"Waste my time and I waste you." The menacing glint of a gun, standard cop issue, easy to get when you owned the cops.

"If any of you thought this was a waste of your time you would have ignored my invitation as you have done before." Webbed hands rested heavily on the table, holding his mutated body upright, striving for a dignity he had never felt. "Gentlemen we have a problem."

"Seems to me that it is you with the problem bird. You went after the Bat and now it is your group his pet is after." In the dark, at the right angel, it was disturbing to be a criminal with this man in the room. The older ones could still hear it; see it in the unscarred portion of his face. The man after the Bat, the one-time district attorney.

"He is branching out, no one is safe. This Knight is a problem, I may be next but who is after me? Are we going to fall one at a time because we are too shortsighted to stop this now?"

"Problem my ass. With the Falcone family going into hiding and licking its wounds, their territory is up for grabs. Being a Maroni has never been better and I got the Bats' boy to thank for it."

"Then why are you here?" The words came out an angry squawk. His fist pounded into the table, misshapen and engorged. "Because you are afraid. Because the streets are empty and silent. The city belongs to them while we cower in the dark! Reduced to whimpering in the shadows!"

Another flip of the coin. "We are all thinking it. Why doesn't someone just say it?" His eyes flashed like the coin. "The Joker."

"What do I care about that clown?" The bitter words of the mob boss were filled with false indifference but they all heard the tremble, the fear of insanity. A cane leaned heavily against the table.

"Because he is the best of us." The words were bitten out, sharp as talons, engorged fists turned pink with blood. "The silence in the streets, the Bat, they would never stop him, not even faze him, but he is silent. Outside of Arkham this long without a word? No…"

"I am leaving." The silent cold figure in the corner of the room stood. "I did not come here to wallow in your filth and listen to stories about who refused your ostentatious invitation." The hollow voice interrupted with frozen passion, boots impacted the floor with a heavy thunk.

"He is dead."

The thunking of the boots stopped, silent as the man turned in place, watched with hollow eyes the passion and fury of the living, of those with blood pumping through their veins.

"The Joker is dead."

Glossy Photos hit the table, sliding into the dim light, all eyes focused on their black and white. "The Bat has reemerged. He prowls the night and The Joker has free run of the city, no gangs, no territory to get in his way but he has not made a move."

"This…Knight got to him." Another stack of photos, two figures entwined high over the rooftops of Gotham.

"Together or alone they took down the Joker. I am next but who will be after me? Who believes they can do alone what none of us have ever done?"

The standard issue gun slipped out of view, the two-faced coin stilled, and a cold hollowed heartless voice asked in dark acquiescence. "What do you want?"

A long nose and beady eyes shot up, looking into the eyes of his comrades, of his dark peers. "Men, snipers, weapons, machinery. My men died under my command…"

The snick metal sliding against metal, the umbrella split, a blade sharp and deadly thrust into the table, spearing the black and white image of the Bat and his Knight.

"I want revenge."

His eyelids twitched as his eyes moved in restless slumber, poison green lurked just beneath the surface, always burning, more alive in sleep then most in their waking hours. His eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks in the dim light, brushing against his mask. He began to stir, waking in stages, a testament to his injuries, to how broken and tired he really was. Instead of unmoving wakefulness, the alertness and observance of a soldier too long left in as a prisoner of war he squirmed like a child, a light moan rising from his throat.

A leg twined with his, an arm was thrown over his stomach and the man sank deeper into the bed, further into the arm that supported his shoulders, his head resting finally in the crook of his arm, lying on his chest. He would squirm until a heartbeat was pressed against his ear and every time he settled the Bat would twist until he could watch that sleeping face with a desire he had never felt before.

"What?" His voice was half asleep; lethargy and injury were dragging him under, taking no prisoners. He should not be able to wake up right now but here he was, his miracle.

"I have you. We are in the cave, it is almost morning." His tried to make his voice soft so that no emotion could play through his words but a deep tremble left him instead, contented and warm as if he had never slept better in his life.

A single green eye peered up at him, squinting as if looking into the sun. "What are you doing?" His voice was thick and heavy but he refused to give up, he was pulling free, shifting more visibly, wakefully. Batman smiled.

"Watching you."

He let his hands card carefully through his golden blond curls, gently touching the hair covering the back of his head, careful not to cause pain. The Knights eyes shut again, like a cat rubbing against his master's palm. It only lasted a second. The calm pliant body in his arms became a blur of motion, hands came up to his face, stretching wide, covering, touching. A rivulet of crimson dripped past his wrist as scabs broke open, he was up on his feet, teetering as the blood rushed to his legs, his skin a stark white.

His fingers traced over the mask on his face, feeling the edges of his protection, apparently the only thing in his mind because he was teetering more, on the edge of losing his balance. Batman was up, arms at ready should he fall but hovering just a step away.

"You took my mask." His voice was high and tight, coiled like a snake ready to strike. His eyes were wild through his fingers; the blood was smearing over his face, his lips, magnifying his intensity, so different then the peacefully slumbering man in his arms.

It was the only way to survive in a city as cruel as this, full mental and physical capabilities at the moment of waking. Perfect.

He stumbled, a foot came out from under him, crumpling, but he continued the motion, let it build into a run. It was falling more than running, using that terrible downward force which threatened to pummel him into the ground to keep his legs moving. He slammed into the door to the bathroom, smacking his head against his hands, against the door, dragging a groan and a stumble from him. He never gave himself a chance to recover from the first wave of dizziness, they were compounding now, tugging him to the floor.

Batman stood outside the door, giving the man a few moments to regain control of his body, to understand what he had no lost, what Batman would not take from him. The Knight was leaning heavily against the sink, his hands tracing over the bottom of the mask, over his cheeks then falling to his sides, limp, relieved. He stepped forward and green eyes bore into him through the reflection in the mirror, the same ferocity but a softer understanding.

"You put a new one on me…"

He could not help it. Without breaking eye contact he could see the lithe body before him, see the prominent hip bones beneath the fabric, the muscles that strained against the tight leather, dark, calling out to him like a sirens song. His hands closed over his waist, spinning him so that no mirror stood between their gazes.

A black mask, wider than his own, more professional, stood guard over his features now but let golden locks spill out behind, he reached up to touch the soft almost familiar hair, a golden color he had never seen in all his travels, a color that reminded him of the early morning sun, something he had not cared to think about in a long time.

"I needed the access; I had to make sure you were okay. I did what I could but I had Alfred come check." The slivers of pale naked skin bared to him still looked blanched, as if the blood had yet to return, his hands were shaking but his expression showed none of it, only a tried sort of relief. "We never looked; I slipped the mask on you before we did anything."

A breath came from him as if he were a balloon deflating; he seemed to crumple, to let himself crumple into Batman's arms. Batman held him tight, more than willing to support his slight weight, ready to show again and again that he would not fail him. Not for anything.

It stabbed at his heart that it was him who had done this. He had smashed the Knights head into the ground, heard it crack and forced him down, impounding it. He gathered him back into his arms, light and delicate like a bird, he could feel the flutter of his breath, the steady rhythmic thumping of his heart. A greasy hand twisted his stomach, wrenching his gut, to think that out of all the villains in the city, all the things they had been through it was him who had hurt the Knight, him who had disoriented him, violated him. And still he was here. No matter how light, how fragile he felt he was made of diamond cable and stone, unbreakable. An immovable object, the one creature so like himself that they did not need words, did not need pretense or masks. For once it was okay to trust, to hold on to a broken creature in the darkness and care as if he was part of his own soul.

They sat together on the edge of the bed, arms wrapped around each other. Batman could feel the Knights heart reeling; his breath was slowing as the blood returned to his mind, as his adrenalin subsided, but for now his harsh panting breath played against Batman's neck. Batman could see the almost nausea, the dizziness that remained in the way he shut his eyes, see what he had done to his single companion. But when the temptation became too much and Batman leaned in and pressed their lips together in a kiss…he was warm and alive in his hands, forgiving what brutalities had been done to him, who they had been done by. It was odd. But it was right.

To care like this. To support the man in his embrace. To fondly pester him to eat what Alfred had brought and be pestered in return. To care more about someone than himself. It did not feel like coddling or carrying another's weight like he had always thought a partner or team would. Somehow, somewhere they had become equals. True partners. The Knight had come into existence thinking only to help the Batman in his time of need…and now he shared in his dark burden, his mission. No, helping the Knight was not another responsibility on his shoulders, it was nothing he would ever resent, it was taking care of part of himself. The part of himself that made him remember the light in the darkness.

Alfred came down to check on them later, making sure that both men were resting…or as close to it as either of them ever came. He checked the various injuries they had incurred on one another, Bruce watched as Alfred checked The Knight. It was easy to see how Alfred's cold medical detachment became overly fond when he applied a bandage, when he spent a little too long cleaning a gash, the way he never wanted to inflict any extra pain. In return Alfred always received a brilliant smile, a stupid comment to make them smile and laugh, like real people.

He waited to see the solemnity, too see the disapproval, the disappointment. Alfred knew what he had done; his fingerprints were all over the scars on the Knights body. Alfred knew that it had been his own hands, his own power that had shredded their Knight, hurt him. But when a slender hand reached out to him from the medical table, bandaged and clean, beckoning until Batman's hand slipped into his own, Alfred smiled. He smiled like a doting father giving away a beloved daughter at the altar.

For the first time in all the long years between them Bruce listened to Alfred's advice to the letter. He rested. It was not for injury; body or soul. It was for him, always for him. They wallowed in their cave, their cocoon. The Knight lay down to sleep alone, restlessly, perpetually turning, always drawing Batman's eyes to him with nothing but a whisper. Tempting him away from the screen, towards the silent thrashing, creating a slow burn in his chest to reach out and soothe.

It was only an hour later when the thrashing stopped with the whisper of skin against cloth. There was the soft whoosh of sheets in air and padding footfalls came closer. They did not share a word. Past an assortment of lab chairs, a computer chair, and far beyond the bed left behind the Knight came to his side with nothing but a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. Bruce pushed back, ready to talk, to examine the injuries he had caused, too see the repercussions of his actions more painfully then had they been committed against his own body. The Knights warm body, so small and light slipped onto his lap, silent and warm with sleep he curled into him. Arms twirling around his neck, legs dangling like a child, he slept in his arms.

He didn't thrash anymore.

Daylight must have come but they never saw it, never wanted to. They were meant to be like this, creatures of the night. Even as a child he had never loved the sun as others had, never found its rising to be beautiful, just another trial, more light that throws evil into the light. Light made to watch the world bleed. But as he watched him sleep, silent and peaceful, golden curls tumbling around him, a halo, he could not help but wonder at the beauty he missed. Was the sun he missed now even comparable to the light he had found here?

The sun could not touch him but he felt time pass, not slow or monotonous, but quickly, a rush of hours that slipped through his fingers, measured in thoughts, in the flickering screen of the cave, measured in heartbeats that were not his own.

It was time for the Bat to roam his city, to follow the leads the previous day had brought him, follow the police channels, time to reclaim his city.

As his thoughts quickened, turned from memorizing every feeling, every angle and shade. His Knight stirred in his arms. Sleepy warm eyes opened to him, like a floodgate, hiding nothing in these first wonderful moments that made him want to give up on the world, to live here and now forever. They fell from him and he felt the loss keenly, they danced across the room, falling on the flashing screen, for an instant upon the stubble on his own chin, measuring, understanding without needing to be told. His perfect counterpart.

"I am going with you." Sleep addled and heavy it lost none of its assuredness, the determination of a six year old staying up on Christmas night, I will see Santa Clause.

"You are hurt." Instant. Not nearly as strong or as forceful as it should have been, as it would have been on any other night. To any other person.

"Like that has ever stopped you?" Laughter hiding beneath the voice, obvious in its timbre, it made him smile. Just a little.

"That is different-"

"Do you really think you can talk me out of it?"

"Not even a little bit." Green eyes were twinkling at him now, more alive than any he could remember in his life. More than any painter could imitate or any film could capture.

"Can't let you go out all by your lonesome."

"I have done it before." He could not help it. He did not want to help it. He kissed him.

He was warm and wet and alive. Almost the moment their lips touched he could feel his breath, panting, moist on his own mouth. A touch and his tongue was searching, devouring, unlike any woman, any man had ever kissed him. He kissed with the demanding of a damaged soul finding refuge, finding salvation.

"Not without your partner."

He did not like the blindfold over his eyes; he fidgeted in his seat but made no move to remove it as the car closed around them. Batman didn't like it either. He barely got to see any of him as it was, he loathed to cover his eyes, to deprive the Knight of sight and himself of the look of him. Hidden in his mask, in shadows, black makeup and leather. The engine ran silent as they drove from the cave at speeds that felt like flying.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see him fidget again, restless, uncomfortable. The exact way he would feel if sight was taken from him. His arms folded and unfolded across his chest, reaching out further and further from his body every time, feeling out the area around him, searching.

Batman held out a hand, waited for the Knight to find it, to grasp it tight in his own. His other arm fell to his side, the motion stopped, the frenetic energy that spilled from him calmed, anticipation remained. The night ahead. Partners.

They had been on patrol for hours, the night was bitterly cold but Gotham welcomed them like a lover. Held them when they swung across its rooftops, cast a shadow when they needed to hide, their gothic playground of metal and stone. The streets were serene but it felt like the calm before the storm. There was turf to be won, a city to fight for, to leave stained in blood, to leave strewn with bodies and rule over. But for now it was theirs, calm won through sweat and blood.

He wanted to go to the Narrows, to see where two-face territory crossed with Falcone land. He needed to grab some two-bit low life and tap back into his city. What was she thinking? What was it tonight that made her heart beat?

"Bats." His voice broke him from his thoughts, how many hours had it been since they had spoken? It didn't seem necessary between them. Looks seemed enough for them. "When we are done for the night I want to show you somewhere alright?"

He was breathtaking against the twinkling orange lights of Gotham's night. All shinning black and poison eyes. A smile pulled at his full ruby lips, a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, foreshadowing of something good to come. Batman wondered as his heart raced in familiar desire how anyone could hold such a depth of darkness within themselves and smile like none of it mattered the way the Knight did. Maybe even the way he could have been if only he had the strength, but it was too late to be that, now he only wanted to have it, have him.

A nod was all the Knight got in response but he was glowing, the smile growing. For the first time that night the Knight made the first move, diving off the edge of the building, aiming into the dark night, their city catching him, winging him away, off towards the Narrows. No, they did not need speech.

They were dashing across a rooftop when they heard it stories below. A child's scream. The Knight was gone; over the edge like a bird of prey by the time Batman reached the edge he was half way down. A child, a boy barely old enough to start school screamed, cried as he was backed into a corner. He could see the tears glistening as they poured down his face. Two men, huge and greasy were advancing on him, a black van with tinted windows sat in the street, one man groped at himself through his pants as he advanced.

The Knight kicked high, the blow landing in the hunched man's face, sending him spiraling. Batman fell into the alley; his fist implanted into the other man's cheek before his boots touched the ground.

"NO!" A sharp cry rang through the night.

"Watch out!" A child's screaming.

The lurching body in front of him slammed into the ground. He spun towards the screams, the child whimpered in a corner, his wide, wet eyes trained to a figure just beyond.

Batman turned in time to watch the Knight pull an empty dart from his shoulder. Green eyes flashed to his as his knees buckled, black leather hitting the pavement. He looked up at him, eyes as wide as the child, speaking to him.

'Run!'

But there was no time. The Knight slumped to the ground the instant his own hands and feet were frozen with a blast from above. Two guns, two separate windows. They never stood a chance. He flicked an internal switch in his gloves, vibrating and heating the suit, a tactical advantage over Freeze, but it took time. As the ice began to crack, a matter of a second, a needle like a knife stabbed between the plates of armor. Black stole the edges of his vision and the ground rushed up towards him.

Like pearls scatted into the night.

Like the cry of a child with no hope left.

The last thing he saw as the darkness took him were sightless green eyes, hollow and dead pressed to the black pavement.


	13. Chapter 13

He was not given the chance to wake up slowly, not allowed to process the why, the how. Not even given time to see if he was still in one piece. A hand, wide and strange slapped across his face, jolting him awake, dragging a gasp from his lips, his eyes flashing open to sting in the harsh florescent lights.

The light scorched his eyes but as the blaze subsided a figure emerged, blurred through tears, as if walking from the fires of hell. He was there, glowering, in a rage, wild with it. The Penguin as he had never been before. All pretense had been stripped away; it was no human who stood before him now, no semblance of sanity remained. He was instinct and wild determination, man stripped of humanity. The hand pulled back, this time a punch connected with his jaw. His head moved with the force, blood spilled from his lip, split wide. His body jerked in attempt to protect himself but his hands were tied high over his head, spread out and numb, the drug still worked its slow poison through him.

They were captured. No matter about the man in front of him, the mortal creature with the devil in his eyes. He took in his surroundings, glad for the first time for the revealing light, his eyes roved the room, searching…needing. His examination did not last long nor stray far from the danger looming in front of him. In the middle of the room, scant yet excruciating feet away, was a table. Lying on top of it, a disregarded rag doll with his legs dangling to the floor lay the Knight, his cheek lying flat against the table, his eyes flashing. Locked with his. Alive.

He was alive.

Another punch caught him off guard. The devil did not like being ignored. He could feel a constant trickle of blood leaking into his cowl. He looked into the Penguins piercing eyes. His feet were tied, spread apart and locked into place, numb and useless as his hands. In his peripheral vision he could see the Knight, felt his eyes on him. Not afraid. Not even now.

His body looked limp, like he could not control it. Nerve gas? His hips and legs spilled over the table like jelly but his arms...his arms were ridged and shaking. His hands were closed over two metallic hand holds, pressing down hard on red buttons, shaking with the effort. He was trying to convey something without words but Batman could hardly see him. He was trying to pretend his attention was focused on the madman in front of him, trying in vain to focus, but his heart lay stripped and bare, across the room with the Knight.

"How does it feel Batman?"

There was a manic cackle in his voice, almost a sadistic hum to his words, thin birdlike lips were turned up in a smirk, dark and horrid. "Now that the tables have turned, now that I have you under my thumb…"

He walked over to the table, sauntered like a gawky model, awkward as an experiment gone wrong, Dr. Frankenstein's nightmare reborn. An engorged hand caressed the Knights cheek with revel. A low growl came from his throat. The Knight bit at the hand but his reaction was slow. His knuckles were white, hands curled tightly, pathetically, over his hand holds.

"How do you feel Bats now that my team- my men are dead and gone and yours lay at my mercy?" His fist crashed down, pummeling the back of the Knights head, cracking unwittingly against the day old wound, crushing injured flesh and bone.

A cry of pain escaped the Knights lips unbidden, dragged from deep within him, from some dark place he had no control over. His forehead lay heavily against the table, his eyes shut tight, his breath gasping in desperate heated pants as he tried to make the world stop turning and flashing.

His hands never wavered.

The Penguins beady eyes flickered between the two of them, delighting in the physical pain on the Knights twisted face as he fought the darkness which had come to claim him, delighting in the look of horror and well felt anguish that raged in Batman's eyes.

He was walking back, scowling, pulsating with fury, his fists connected again mercilessly with Batman's now cracked cheekbone. He could only be glad that the beast's attention was set on him, stealing precious seconds. On the table The Knight regained his elusive breath, his heaving chest slowed from its desperate cadence.

"ANSWER ME!" Webbed fingers clutched his face, thin short fingernails dug into the open cuts on his lips. "Tell me! How does it feel to know you have led him to death?"

Batman's pulse accelerated, it pounded in his ears loud as the crashing ocean. He trained his eyes to the madman in front of him. Is this what happened when you dragged a sociopath to the end of his limits? When you take a man with nothing and strip away the last remnants of life he had created from himself? Irrationally, for a split second, Batman could not help but think, but wonder about all the things they said about him in Gotham. Did the hero make the villains? Had he made the Penguin and the Knight destroyed him?

"What do you want?" He was quick to ask, just a few more second to let the Knight breath, frantic to keep his attention, to drag the brunt of the assault upon himself. Desperate to not see the pain he would feel reflected in the Knights eyes.

"Batsy!" The Penguins anger disappeared as he spoke, faded in the blink of an eye as an aristocratic smile took its place, a smile he had seen on the faces of men who just signed hundreds into homelessness in the name of self profit. "I want only what is due to me!"

He spun around in a whirl of black coat and white flesh; his umbrella sprung from his side and struck the Knight without warning, without provocation. The cry reverberated in Batman's mind, unsettling his soul, shaking him to the core as his face slammed down into the wood.

Batman could not save him.

"I want you to suffer as I have suffered." Penguin tore his eyes from the sight of the gasping Knight laid out helpless before him and stared into the Bats tortured gaze.

"I want you to beg me to kill you." He looked down, a smile soft and evil growing on his face until it painted it like a harlequin clown and a grinning demon.

"And before the end you will beg me to kill him."

An umbrella leaned against the table, so close to the Knights hand that it brushed his fingertips as it was taken away. The Knight did not chance a move to seize it.

Fierce green eyes were refocusing; he was swimming through the haze of pain and thinning adrenalin to watch a sliver of sharpened metal rise from the umbrella. In his mind it was a sword piercing its victim straight through and erupting from their back all the more colorful, a blade that would find a sheath only in flesh as darkness danced through his vision.

The umbrella fell useless to floor as Penguin gripped only the blade in his hand, staring at like a doting mother, stroking its clean edge with a smile that churned Batman's stomach. Green eyes turned resolutely away as the blade neared his back, for a moment, a single moment, poison green eyes were weak, for a moment they sought out the Bat. For a moment they were together, no barriers lay between them to late for that now, but the Bat could see…

The Knight knew something more.

Something terrible.

Something he would keep from him at any price.

Green eyes fell away from him, hiding behind closed lids, falling to the wood and darkness and finding a hiding place from him. Finding peace.

"Penguin."

Panic rose sharp and horrid in the Batman as the blade glinted in the light. An emotion foreign and terrible, fear, stole his mind. Fear for the Knight was making his own useless limbs shake, his heart was in his throat, pounding, rising and choking him as the blade cut through the thin material covering the Knights back. The blade sliced as if through air, black leather spread, revealing an expanse of pale white flesh. Flayed flesh opened to pour crimson, to let it sit and pool in the contours of his prone body.

A long shallow cut crossed the length of the Knights back, splitting the material in half. He never flinched. Never made a sound.

Only when the cut had been made did Penguin look up, taking in his trembling captive with a smile.  
"Have you figured it out darling? What I plan to do? What I have done?" His eyes raked over his form, spread and venerable, uncaring, trembling, blue eyes refusing to leave the other man. He spun and saw the Knight, head down, the shallow motion of his chest, the limp uncaring.

Except his hands.

Always his hands.

"NO." The growl was a rumble echoing from deep within the Penguin. His smile fled, melted by acid, scarring his scowl into place. A fist hit wildly, irrationally, on the prone figure, causing no harm, almost no pain. "You can't do this to me. I won't let you escape me like this."

A fist, more prepared, harder and stronger than it looked slammed into Batman, stealing nothing but his breath but the figure on the table did not move. Warmth rose within him, hope. The Knight was gone mentally, he would not feel this pain, whatever would happen would happen still but his mind was somewhere safe, somewhere far from this place. As the smile traded places from once face to another, rising on Batman's frozen features, a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispered dark haunting questions that lingered in his mind. Where he had learned such a trick? Why did it come so easily now?

"No."

The man was growing feral, a snapping beast with its meal dangling forever out of reach. He turned again and again, eyes falling on the Knights hands, back to the knife. His panic, his rage, eased. He angled himself perfectly, twisted awkwardly so the Bat could see from his cruel vantage point, so that the Knight had only to look up, so that his foul fish breath flared over his face with every exhalation.

His fat hands began peeling at the Knights vice grip hands to no avail but his breathing was picking up, rising, increasing, he had triggered something within him, his last failsafe. The knife came next with a biting smile. The Knight tensed on the table as the Penguin cut away the sleeve of his uniform, sliding it down his arm towards his hands, peeling back the leather around torn, bleeding flesh. The muscles and tendons were visible, rippling, vibrating with repressed motion.

The blade pressed down into his arm, threatening to cut, to dig deep and take muscle and split it. Threatened to cut his hand loose and limp from his body, threatened to release his death grip.

As the first stream of red poured down the Knights head shot up, his eyes were fire, only for the Penguin, daring him to move, daring him to die.

"Tell him." The villains words were simple and sweet, a voice of a goading winner, refusing to back down, refusing to release his win but take it for all it was worth.

"No." Batman soared at the sound. The Knights voice, alive and burning, back from his dark hiding, unhurt. His sirens song.

"Tell him or I cut."

"Are you ready to die?" His arm strained but his physical weakness meant nothing in face of the passion that burned within him, the power sleek and terrible begging to be released.

A battle of wills from a foot apart. Everything lay on the line. Their own lives lost all meaning, the chips were down. Nothing left to bluff.

"At a worthy price."

The Knight broke their battle, his head fell to the table. But was it a tie or a loss?

"If I-" the words were soft, almost lost in the whisper of the room.

"Look at him!" The Penguin smashed his fist into the table inches from the Knights face. He lay frozen, horrified and unable to move. The Penguin lifted his fist again, ready to deal the Knight a devastating blow. Batman gasped the words that Penguin tore from his throat, hating what they meant, hating he was doing what the Penguin wanted.

"Look at me." He watched as the body he had grown to know sunk, his limbs heavy with internal devastation. Batman swallowed past his beating heart. He wished he knew what he was doing to him, wished he knew what he was asking for but he could not stop. He could not let him be hurt. Not if he could stop it with a word, with a look.

"It will be okay." Slowly, as if frozen and unthawed the Knight lay against his prison defeated, eyes blinking open slowly, finding him and never letting go.

He did not speak for a moment, hungry eyes taking in all of him, dark familiar lines, blue eyes as familiar as his own smile. And the words came finally thick and soft and without emotion. Numb.

"If I let go..." A deep breath, a grin wide and wicked from the Penguin. "You die."

Batman looked again at the locks binding him to the ceiling. He could see the material; guess that it would be done by electrocution, through barbs in his suit, through his chest, streaming past his heart, frying the tiny electrical impulses that kept his heart beating. There were two separate buttons in the Knights hands. Two chances to release.

The only thing between the Knight and freedom, the thing keeping him spread wide over the table was Batman.

Their eye met again and neither could look away.

The Penguin was laughing now. He watched the two of them and seemed to grow, to swell with it. His triumph, their pain. He walked to the end of the table where the Knights body hung limp, captured by the grips of a drug, he pressed himself in the Knights flesh, the front of his crotch pressing into the leather still covering the Knight.

In the moment that the panic welled and crested, when he knew they had lost, what they were losing, and another fatal piece of the Bats heart broke and shattered in his chest the Knight gave him a smile.

A smile of understanding. Of knowing. A smile that meant all the words left unsaid and so much more. He knew begging would be too worthless to say, to leave for the Penguins greedy ears to pick apart. Theirs to hear in their twin soul. Theirs alone.

'Save yourself!'

'Not a chance.'

'Let go.'

'Not of you. Not ever.'

The Knight wondered as warmth pressed close behind him and the knife cut into him again, flaying his flesh, breaking the thin veneer around his body, if Penguin wondered if there was ever a choice for him. Did Penguin expect him to lay in torment? To constantly balance himself against the Bat?

Because there was no thought. He would do anything. Suffer anything.

But maybe this torture was not for him, the newcomer, the almost sidekick.

Penguin was smart. Could he see what they were? What they meant to each other?

Could he see through the mask? In his subconscious mind did he look on him and see the paint and the laughter?

The blade cut again, down his leg this time, shredding the material, it was beginning to fall off his flesh in strips. The thought came into his mind unbidden and almost funny.

Please don't touch the mask.

Anything but that.

But that's not what the Bat was thinking. Not by a long shot.

The table was cool and solid against his face; it gave him something real to focus on while his legs flopped uselessly, unresponsive as wet noodles, making his world weak, wobbly. He could feel the blood streaming warm over flesh, missed its warmth as it cooled in the air. But the only feeling that meant anything was the desperation in Batman, the way he held himself, coiled until he was about to snap, his eyes blazing when he himself could muster little more than cold acceptance.

For the Bat. Anything for him.

And that was it wasn't it?

Penguin did not expect him to let go and kill the Bat.

He expected the Bat to beg for him to let go. He expected the Bat to beg to be allowed to die.

He expected both of them to die here tonight.

The knife cut again, he could feel the sickening pressures of the Penguin behind him, his nauseating heat. Strips of leather lay strewn across the floor now, wrapped in blood and sweat. He could practically hear Batman's heart raging out of control. His body twisted and strained, begging and killing all at once. His eyes watched every drop of blood as if fell, every searing inch of the knife biting into white flesh.

He watched the expression of pure unadulterated devilish pleasure on the penguins face.

"Bats."

The mask was gone from the Bats eyes. It was in shreds and jagged pieces at his feet leaving his clear blue eyes were more open then they had ever been in this life. Fire raged and burned him but for now it was secondary to the longing desperation, the pure unbridled love hidden for so long that now, when it might be too late, it flooded onto him like a salve to his soul.

The Joker longed to fade into himself. To leave his body far behind and hide in the darkest recesses of his mind where Penguin could never touch him, where no one had ever been able to touch him. It was like repressing a muscle reflex. The darkness called to him again, he did not want to feel this violation again as if he were still that crying child.

He could still feel him heavy on top of him. Sweat and grease and pain.

'Jack'

No.

Can't think. Can't hide. Can't escape.

Because when he looked into Batman's eyes he knew he could not look away.

The Bat needed him. Needed him to be strong, to draw his attention away from their bodies, away from blood and torment.

"Bats look at me." He kept his voice clear as the knife bit into him again, deeper this time. He tried to hide the pain but he knew the Bat could see it in his eyes, the way he wound tighter, the way his lips almost disappeared in a thin line.

The way he looked like he almost wanted to cry.

The Joker took a deep breath, the man behind him grumbled, the knife dug into flesh, almost a shallow stab now. He looked into the Bats eyes and did what he had done every moment they were together, the one thing he did not want to do anymore.

"It will be okay."

He lied.

The Penguin was tearing at the cloth with his hands now, frustrated with it, bored with his slow torture when his captives seemed so unconcerned with him.

Not long left.

The sound of tearing leather filled the room, his body moved with the force of it, a stripe of pain split down his back as the grubby fingers dug into a fresh slice, peeling away flesh and cloth.

The panic rose in the Bat again, so helpless, locked into place and unable to do anything but watch.

He needed to take that away from him.

"I need you to promise me something."

He desperately wanted to hear the word 'anything' to fall from his mouth like the movies. Like the fantastical promises of doomed lovers, but his Bat was so much more than the prince in a fairy tale. So much more now than his ill-fated Romeo. He looked on, enveloping him, watching, and promising nothing before he knew what it entailed.

"Close your eyes."

Before Barman could respond the Knight could see the horror in his eyes. The knife bit hard and fast, scraping a scream from his throat.

"If you do not watch-" Penguin lifted the knife in the air, blood steamed down its shining silver surface, stealing the Bats attention from him. "It will be worse for him."

No.

It could not get worse than what he had planned. There was no need for the Bat to feel this torture, this pain with him, and his own exquisite brand of hell.

But the Bat would not take that chance.

He swallowed; even through the Batsuit the Knight could see it, funny how well he knew the other man's body without really knowing it.

The Bat looked so sad, like the fight had been whipped from him, like there was nothing left but this. He did not need to say it but he did, in a whisper so soft it could hardy exist.

"I'm sorry."

The Knight was looking into miserable blue eyes he loved more than his own soul when he saw sudden panic, a sudden inferno. And then there was pain.

Thick and malformed, slamming into him, there was a single sweet second where he thought that this was it. This would kill him and all the pain, all the anguish would end finally. Penguin had stabbed him deep and true and in a moment the blood would leak, would flood until nothing of him remained.

The Bats eyes were on him. Only him. Panic and horror in them. Sweet. His.

But the pain came sharp and thick again, the slap of wet flesh, of burning. Fire in his intestines. He was being torn, ripped apart, broken open and fat hands, slimy with sweat, held his hips.

And this was not death, the darkness called to him but his hands strained on their holds; his left hand was covered in folded leather now, sliding down his arm, making it hard to readjust his hold.

Have to hold on.

Just hold on.

But it was disgusting and vial and wrong and fuck it hurt. He wanted to die, just die and forget this. And Batman was watching, so close, he could see it all. See the pain, see his weakness.

For the Bat. Survive, endure, hold on!

For the Bat.

And then there was a grunt, something sick that made bile rise in his throat and fuck. Deep. And he looked straight into Batman's eyes, not wanting to hurt him, not wanting him to see, to see him, too see this, to see pain. But when something ripped, when something deep within him tore and all he could think was that it was wrong. So wrong.

It should have been the Bat.

Forever, for the rest of his life it would only ever be the Bat like this.

With him.

In him.

He screamed.

He screamed until all breath was gone from him. Mindless, killing the Batman as sure as poison, slow, meticulous, searching out every corner of his existence and tainting it.

Pain. Anguish. Always, infusing every half formed though, every heartbeat every breath. Thrusts deep and terrible melded into one slow arc of terror. Familiar.

He could feel himself start to slip away. He needed to stay with the Bat, needed to keep his eyes on him but how could he share this pain? Their souls would connect and burn. Ashes left smoldering. No

No.

Minutes ticked by like lifetimes. Thrust. Thrust . Thrust. Endless, tainting him, killing him, pushing into his guts, his body destroyed. The sounds assaulted him, the whimpers and grunt of dominance, of false power. The slick of one body invading another. The slap of flesh colliding,

It should have been the Bat.

His mind floated, separating him from his body, slowing time. A living coma. He could pick out other sensations now. The bloodless death grip of his hands. Don't let go.

The slick useless warmth of blood spilling from him, coating the Penguins engorged length and doing nothing to stop the damage, to stop a single iota of pain.

The way his foot braced against the floor now.

The way his thighs trembled with effort.

The way he could feel again.

Another thrust, deep and grinding, hard, pushed him into the table, his legs cutting into the wood, the motion pushing sliced leather over his hand.

Another grunt, louder now. He was grinding into him, erratic. He choked on the vomit pushing into his mouth, his mind clung to mindlessness but there was no time…

Warm and disgusting with a cry the creature behind him pounded brutally into him once more. No…

The leather glove twisted as he moved, dangerous as his fingers danced over the button, turned and switched but there was no choice. It was try or die.

Greasy and fat he collapsed on top of him, still buried deep within the Knight. His heat saturated his tense body. No.

'Jack'

Familiar.

Too familiar.

He let go of the switch. He rolled, pushing the thing to the floor, ignoring the sick squelch as he slipped out of him, of thick flesh hitting the table, the floor.

He still held one switch in a hand but he was off the table. Kicking, screaming. He didn't know. He wasn't doing it.

It was just happening.

Memories. Sights. Sounds. People flashed before his eyes.

And it wasn't the Penguin he was kicking anymore, not just his blood that ran on the floor.

"stop!"

He could not punch, could not reach the knife that was too far away. He needed it, needed to stop this but he had fallen wrong…

"STOP!" There was blood on his feet, he was standing in it, it splashed up and down his legs, pale, like blood on paper. An all of a sudden he didn't want to touch it anymore. He did not want to be here.

His mind shut down again. No memories. No thought. Nothing. Leather from the floor. Easy to wrap around the button, keep the Bat safe. Let go.

He stepped on the man on the floor as he took away to the keys, too obvious on the end of one of his umbrellas. If he ran to the Bat just a little too fast he could not tell you why.

Then arms were around him. Holding him up. It hurt now. Light. Dark. Life. Body. It all hurt. Even the Bat hurt but he could not fix it. Could not make it better. He would have to think, have to push through the fog that kept him.

A cape wrapped around him, dark and smothering but warm in the right way, just him. The Bat was walking towards the table, towards the body…He stopped walking with him, refused to move, but refused to let go.

No. Please.

He looked into blue eyes and realized for the first time that he had done it. He had saved them.

Arms wrapped around him again and this time he let himself fall into darkness.


	14. Chapter 14

There was this_ thing_ about love, about truly caring for someone. Their tragedies become your tragedies. When they hurt you feel their pain. When they cry all you want to do is wipe away their tears and drown with them.

When they die a part of you dies.

And when the world has hurt them, when words are no longer enough and it feels like the whole universe has crashed down around them and all the debris lays unmovable between you…

You are lost.

A ship without a guiding star.

A martyr with no reason.

And all you want to do is go home.

He was silent as death in Batman's arms, unmoving, letting himself be carried away, wrapped in the Dark Knights cape.

Physically he existed, trapped in the safety of Batman's stone embrace. Mentally he was gone, a million miles away in some beautiful place where nothing ever happened except the beating of your heart. In his wake he left only hollowed dead eyes and a body, unspectacular without a soul.

In the car he started to hyperventilate, he was unresponsive, his eyes dilated. Batman had no choice but to sedate him, if he was aggravating a wound…

Alfred was notified of the situation from the radio link in cold clipped tones and sentences the Bat could not remember once they had died on his lips. When Batman finally pulled into the cave Alfred was waiting at the medical table, a statue of a saving god waiting for its chance to matter, prepped and ready but unnaturally still.

Alfred stood, waiting in a sea of sterile white and shining metal, and for the first time in decades spent together, Bruce could see the weight of all of Alfreds long years pressing down on him.

Batman emerged from the car, pulling the Knights limp body from its restraints, gently securing the cape around him.

Not feeling any of it.

He was frozen.

Even as he tucked the Knights limp body into his arms, cradling him carefully for the short walk, he could feel the blood beating against the battalions of his frozen heart. Feel the ice spread in his veins, into his numb and distant mind. Crystallizing.

He felt lobotomized. A world apart.

This was not his life. Not his pain.

He worked on auto pilot, laying the unconscious man down, letting him go with only a slight _B-Dump_ of dread in his heart.

He pulled at the cape, watched as the dark edges fluttered to the ground like a bats wings shuttering as it falls dead into black oblivion. The staunch white light of the medical lamps created an antiseptic pool of light in a sea of black water… and everything was revealed.

Strips of twisted leather clung to pale white skin, flesh and material stuck together with thickened blood. The climax of a gory horror film thrust awkwardly into their almost genuine lives. Alfred's gloved hands cut away at the grotesque remains of the costume, throwing away piece by piece their ruined past.

The Knight laid bared to them, uncovered save for the clinging mask on his face and the veil of blood that covered his body. Before Alfred could cover him, before he could shield him from the cold kiss of the air Batman's greedy blank eyes roved over him. His skin was a map of white slices of scar tissue; violent new strips of painful crimson cut their cruel paths into pieces. No gash was too small nor too shallow to be committed to memory by his hungry eyes. Each slash was filed away in his the depths of his mind to be retrieved in the night, his divine punishment, to lay willingly each night upon Mount Caucasus, _Prometheus Bound._ As if any punishment could ever suffice for his sins.

Batman agonized over each wound, every last break of flesh that he had caused with his own foolishness. With his inability to stop it from happening. Wounds that had been willingly endured to save him because he was not strong enough to save himself.

Superficial wounds that meant nothing in the true face of what had happened to them.

Each wound etched itself into Batman's mind with blood and vengeance, hiding in the dark with scattered pearls. He needed to see, to keep the memory fresh in his mind all of his cursed days; he needed to create wounds in himself that could never heal because he could never compare with the evil done in his name. But even as plotted his dismal future, as he stared at the wilted body before him and though this is _him_, my Knight… He could still not make sense of it in his mind, no matter what he thought it never felt real. He never felt the pain that should rip his blackened heart from his chest and squeeze the life from it.

Things like this happened every day without reason or bias. As Batman he witnessed things like this every night, murder, rape, he knew how to react.

He knew what it was to have a greasy prep splinter in his hands, knew in the echoes of the cursed night the endless screams that had nothing to do with the broken rapist. He knew the look of anguish in the shadows, the sounds of sirens in the distance that meant that help was on the way and he was free to leave….

But there was no one here to break. No Calvary to save his broken Knight and no white knight to wipe his face and make the resonating howl of torment that would come with the moment of wakefulness stop.

Alfred had finished examining the Knights abused skull. Ok. He was ok. Alfred whispered the words that were only a half truth.

Not ok, never ok…but alive.

He was useless. He could not help here. What did he know of medicine that could help the man he had doomed? What did he know of how to comfort, to pretend he understood emotion never felt but read of in text books? But maybe, back in the harsh night, in his familiar bittersweet Gotham he could make a difference. Maybe there was a villain to break after all.

Did the penguin live? Did his bloodied broken Knight finish him in his blinded fury, innocent as a child with a shotgun? He should have checked, should not have to question now, he had not acted rationally before. He had not thought as he was newly freed from death, from the grips of hell itself to climb into this mindless limbo. He had held the trembling Knight in his arms…he had stepped forward to cuff the penguin, to lock him away somewhere where not even rats braved to tread. Maybe if he was not dead…maybe he would have finished the job.

But the Knight had stopped him.

His eyes. His pain. He asked him to stop in a half broken whisper, asked him to go. So he did.

But the Knight was safe now, as safe as he could be in their rabid city. His sweet prince lay in blissful unconsciousness. He lay now, not the man who stood tall on the tops of gothic towers, not the man who took down half of Gotham's most wanted with a smile that sparkled… he lay now broken. The man that had captured the Bat and had made him _feel_ lay now unseeing, unable to stop him, unable to need him.

Batman needed to go now. Somewhere out in his city was the person who had done this. His city slept and he would cut the cancer from her, cut until the man who had taken too much from him was brought to justice. Yes. He would cut away the blackened necrosis that rotted Gotham and tainted their lives; he would make sure the Penguin never had the chance to do this again.

Without a word Batman took a final look at the too-still, obscured figure of the man he thought he loved and took a purposeful step back. Batman was turning to go in a stream of black when his eyes fell briefly, fitfully, across Alfred.

The older man was working diligently, hands like a musicians as they stemmed the blood flow from one of the deeper gashes, fighting to keep the precious ruby droplets pumping through the broken mans' heart. He never said a word, never looked up, never flinched as his hands stained red and the sheets black with blood.

Something was different.

Something was wrong even now.

Alfred had been a field medic for years and he had tended to the most dire of Batmans wounds for countless years longer. He had seen death and gore and youth and life, meaningless as they pass you by. Meaningless when they are lost to the too short passage of time and fate, lost in the careless hands of the criminal class and hatful metal. He had patched Bruce's near mortal wounds, the man he counted his own child, without the bat of an eye.

But there was an unusual sorrow in his eyes as he worked. The perpetual dry wit that had saved Bruce from the darkest tendencies of his own soul more times than he could count had vanished as if it had never existed. It had disappeared with the light that had once graced the Knight. His untouchable butler, his medic, and his dearest friend was looking down at the Knight with grim, terrible pain.

Alfred's eyes rose, still holding a life in his hands, he saw Batman for what he was, knew what his one terrible step away meant for them all.

When the blue eyes of his oldest friend met his Bruce's own he realized that the pain he saw there was not for the Knight.

It was for him.

It was the same look Alfred had all those years ago when Bruce rushed into his arms, a child whispering as his world collapsed. _'they are gone'_

It was the same look he had as he held Bruce and told the police that he would take full custody of his charge.

He should not look at him with those eyes. Not now.

But then again everything was wrong.

And the worst part of all that his in his twisted dark soul…he felt none of it at all.

He wondered in an abstract mindless way, caught in between choices, stuck at the crossroads and unable to take a step further, why he _felt _nothing. He should burn, he should be on fire. He should want to kill and maim, to comfort and banish the darkness that had infected both of them. To hold the Knight and tell him everything would be 'ok' and yet…here he was…standing apart from everything.

Dark. Empty. Cold.

Hollow.

Did he feel nothing because he did not love the Knight as he thought he had? Was it possible that his mind had finally broken? That he could have imagined a relationship, a desire…a completeness in himself… that was not there? Could his broken heart have superimposed feelings on the Knight that had no place in the Bats life?

Batman looked down at bloodied golden curls.

_B-Dump_.

The lurch of his heart, the singular thought of 'mine' that erased all the wandering homeless thoughts in his mind, the need to take him far away from here where no one would ever find them told him no.

Alfred's pained grim eyes…

His own mindless horror, the way his traitorous heart slowed when it should be racing…

He was in shock.

The Batman was in shock.

Batman took a step forward, away from the batmobile, away from the path not taken and into the light shining on the Knight. Dead or alive the penguin would wait, and the rest...

Pitying blue eyes looked back at him, surprised to see him still there, amazed and twinkling again with life, even drained and blood splattered they shone.

Still not feeling but understanding, knowing, Bruce reached beneath the twisted red and white sheet, a demented inkblot, and cradled a cold limp hand in his own.

_______

Bruce thought he could stay like this forever.

Cold.

Analytical.

It could serve a purpose.

The little boy soaked in his mother blood, staring up at the police with wide, dry, eyes.

Intellectually Bruce understood that there were emotional repercussions to deal with. That this went beyond the physical, beyond the comforting facts of textbooks and research. He knew that even when the wounds were gone, reduced at long last to just another road of perfect, raised, white on a map of scars… The Knight would still be hurt. Still wounded and broken, still his tortured martyr.

Eventually the shock, the abrupt numb, painlessness Batman existed in now would fade. Eventually he would feel the pain he wished would envelope him if only to know that he still existed. He would see with clear eyes what had been done to the other half of himself, his adopted family. He would see at long last the true face of evil; he would see what had been done to the man that he _did_ love.

Love. The only thing he could feel. He could feel it through his suit, what was metal and cloth to the force that brought the Bat crashing to his knees? He felt it in every beat of the Knights heart, felt it burn through his glove and emanate up his arm from where they touched, gentle as a caress.

But maybe when the time came to become human once more, to feel that exquisite damning pain…he could anticipate it, disregard it. What if he refused to feel that pain again? What if could feel only anger, what if he could harness sit? Use it? Let it become part of him in the dark where Bruce disappeared and the Bat protected the night?

What if he could take no more? Already an orphan, already mutilated…how far could a heart break before it shattered? At what point did damage become irreparable?

Maybe he could exist as the Bat while Bruce hid away, weak, human. Cold and emotionless in his chosen face he could exist. The Knight would understand his forced indifference. Maybe the new fire in the Bat, his new passion to fight for what was right and extinguish the bad would provide the Knight a way to heal, show him the unfeeling path to take, a way to survive. Maybe the Bats new origin, a life dedicated to only the mission, only ever this life and forsake all others…maybe it would be enough to forgive the fact that Bruce died in the cold, maybe it would be enough to turn a blind eye to the fact that a Bat could not wipe your tears when you cried.

The Knight would understand.

He would have to.

A life numb to life. Love placed upon a pedestal, a rose encased in glass and never touched, never again to be brought out into the light to be admired, never again to smell its sweet perfume.

Half death in the face of perpetual darkness.

In the face of fate worse than death.

Of failing his family, his Knight, every moment. With every breath, with every beat of his worthless heart. He should envy _Prometheus Bound_.

Not this pain.

Not his family. Not again.

Bruce watched the rise and fall of his chest, too sick looking with its pale red hue covering chalk white and laced with vibrant crimson. He watched closed eyes behind a mask of black and imagined green. How much time lay before them? How much remained to them until Bruce could stand it no longer? Beyond that- when years separated them and broke their spirits- how long did their broken bodies have to breathe and pulse with crude life? How much time was Bruce stealing from them because he was too weak to exist in this world as a man?

"I am sorry."

Sorry for what I did and did not do.

Sorry for the Past.

Sorry for the future.

Sorry for the future we do not have.

_Sorry I will leave you all alone._

But imagined green eyes opened and became real, eyes and stared into the Batmans zombie soul, seconds of existing were stolen in their hidden limbo before a gasp escaped the Knights full lips and tumbled them onto a path the Bat had never anticipated.

"Bats!" Soft and sweet and _real._

And all the beautiful apathy, the carefully crafted indifference, the miles that separated them…broke and shattered into a million useless crystals. And it hurt with a pain more intense and sweet than Bruce ever imagined.

It hurt and it was real and he would never give it up. Not for his god forsaken soul.

Batman crashed down on the bed, gathering his friend's broken form into his arms, holding him close as tears rose to his eyes and spilled down his cheeks, coating the inside of his cowl until he could taste his broken sobs as he gasped for air and the Bat dissolved under Bruce's force.

Two soft naked arms wrapped around his cold armor, holding him, pressing soft curls into his cheek as the Knight buried his masked face in him.

Batman expected the Knight to break with him, to shatter and hurt if only just for now, but the arms that held him were not desperate, his breath was not ragged. He was protective and warm and when the tears stopped choking him but ran silently down his face he could hear the Knight whisper in a voice that broke and shattered him and made him whole again.

"_Your okay."_


End file.
